


Spirit of Mythal

by Vamppeach



Series: Vir Bellan'an: The Way of Eternity [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Blood Drinking, Dalish Elven Culture and Customs, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, POV Solas, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2019-11-15 03:10:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18065468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vamppeach/pseuds/Vamppeach
Summary: Even before the fall of Arlathan, vampires were a relic: Warriors beget by Andruil to fight beside her in battle. When there was no war to fight, vampires prowled Andruil's courts as her children. They took what they wished as they wished it, and cared for nothing beyond what furthered their own power. They were everything wrong with Arlathan, and if Solas accomplished one good thing in forming the Veil, it was that the secrets of their kind were lost forever.Then, of course, he meets Mahanon.





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. It's me again. Remember how last time, I said the concept got away from me? Well now it's _gotten away from me._ This is officially the longest narrative I've ever written, and I had _so_ much fun working on it! The fic is completed, I'll update regularly. 
> 
> Thank you times a million to my betas Jasper and Silver. It's a way stronger fic thanks to you!

Some nights Solas dreams with focus. Speaks with spirits, learns from Wisdom, relives the old memories.

But tonight the paths to old Arlathan turn on themselves and all curve their way into old regrets with the surety of a well-traveled road.

Tonight he dreams of her.

“I believe it is a kind of blood magic,” Andruil explains. She was paler than usual, that night, her dark hair twisted into a simple knot atop her head as if to say: _Be at ease, Solas. We meet as friends. Be at ease._

She uncrosses her legs and ceases her lounging. Instead she leans forward and fixes her gaze on him.

Solas meets it. He is long practiced in resisting the urge to flinch beneath her.

“It is a costly magic, however. Thus, I summon you to ask assistance.”

“You _believe_ it is a kind of blood magic? Nevermind that you know I do not practice blood magic," he crosses his arms. "Am I to submit myself for your testing that which is not yet understood?”

“I said the magic is _new,_ Solas. How am I to understand it if I do not practice?”

He was not yet Fen’harel then; the Evanuris not yet gods, merely generals, fighting a war.

“You say it’s costly.”

Andruil waves her hand. “The amount of blood is of less consequence than its potence. You are as I am, a mage of power. Your blood would function best.”

How novel.

“And you cannot draw on your own blood, your own potence, because-?”

She smiles. “I already am- as I understand, the magic requires a second source.” It did not feel like a lie, and Andruil, too invested in this war for lying. “As I said, the magic is new. It is unlike Dirthamen’s blood magic. It’s more.” She wets her lips as she speaks. Her mouth moves strangely, as if somehow new, not yet accustomed to shaping words. “With this we may win the war.”

The war has been long, and he is tired. Solas sighs. “You have my interest.”

She grins, and yes, there is something abnormal in the curve of her lips. Perhaps the war weighs on her as well. Even hunters grow weary. “Then come.” She beckons him to lay where she had been lounging. Solas sits; Andruil rolls her eyes, but sits beside him.

On a table beside them sits the remnants of that evening’s meal: some kind of rare, rich meats that left puddles of red-brown grease. But the sitting room holds no knife or bowl as Dirthamen might require, and the room is hardly fit for a lab.

“What does your experiment entail?”

A firm hand presses his shoulder; the other, on his wrist, skin cool even in the evening chill. He shudders. “It is simpler to show you.” She leans into him, seems to stretch and grow and he is small, smaller than he’s ever been.

He did not have the sense to fear then. They were as the other is, mages matched in power. And in his pride he feared _so little-_

The hand on his shoulder slides to fist in his hair, mouth at his neck, she _bites._ Blood springs too quick by the force of her jaw alone. The wrongness he felt but could not place, the awkward _newness_ of her mouth makes sudden, lurching sense. Fangs break skin, dig hard and then harder- the first pull of blood swoops through his stomach, leaves him sick and awash with vertigo so intense he can only gasp.

He should have sensed, then, the corruption festering inside her. But that first time, the newness overwhelmed him: a terrible ache, a dizzying warmth, a spark of desire that would make Andruil so dangerous and brought so many, willing, to her heel.

The pressure pulls away. Solas opens his eyes. _When did they close_ -

“Was that strictly necessary?”

 _“Entirely.”_ Her voice strikes a foul chord, air shimmering like a hammer hit hard against the Fade. Solas shuts his eyes again.

She drags a thumb over his neck, heedless of the raw skin she made of it. The ache crescendos to a stinging pain, then dissipates entirely, as if seeped out through her touch. It leaves his skin resonating in that same foul chord, makes him sick and hot.

He stands, demands, “What have you-” twists to face Andruil with all the strength he can manage. Sways.

He blinks and Andruil is there, hand on his elbow, steadying and far quicker than even she could naturally move-

It takes a moment, her steadying hand on his elbow, for his sluggish mind to work through exactly what just occurred. “You’re using the potency to augment your physical capabilities,” he slurs.

“That is the idea of it.” She releases his arm. “Imagine ten, even five of my lieutenants after undergoing the change-”

“The change?” Interest sharpens his mind, and he is almost himself again

Andruil blinks. “I did say my blood is part of the process. It catalyzes. Changes.”

That, he thinks, sounds like a lie.

No matter. He has his spies. He will learn what Andruil has done, how her new magic works. In time. He can have patience. And for the moment-

He sways again, but Andruil does not catch him, now that her demonstration is complete. That, too, is fine.

“Enjoy your studies,” he says cooly, and takes his leave.

He is tired, and there is work to be done.

* * *

 

When he seeks Mahanon again, he resolves they cannot proceed as they had before. Solas cannot proceed as they had before. Cannot allow himself the luxury of Mahanon-

It would be, _problematic,_ and cruel.

So he gathers a clean bowl from the young apothecary’s desk, ensures a dagger is fixed quietly into his belt, and makes his way to the cabin.

It is the night before their departure for Redcliffe, and if he looks strange wandering the camp with an empty bowl in hand, well, there are some advantages to being an elf in this age, and invisibility is chief among them. The camp is busy with preparation. No one stops his progress to the cabin, not a soul even seems to notice.

He knocks once, then enters

“So,” Solas says by way of greeting. Mahanon likely heard him coming, but neither of them are above courtesy. Mahanon clings to propriety. The least Solas can do is play along. He takes post in the doorframe, blocking escape as before. Though unlikely, Solas cannot forget the way Mahanon’s knees locked at his presence, how his eyes went wide between the door and the windows, how he froze like a halla downwind from a wolf. Unnerving, to inspire that look in another, with his power but a fragment of what it was, in a world where no one knew his face, knew to fear him.

But rather than primed to flee, Solas finds Mahanon seated at the edge of his bed. His daggers rest on a chair he dragged over to his workspace, belts draped across its back and whetstone placed before him. Preparing.

He glances up at him and gestures broadly to the cabin. “Aneth ara.” He smiles, and returns to his work. He takes the acknowledgment as invitation to clear the chair Mahanon was using to hold his gear and sits across from him, bowl held awkwardly in his lap.

_Should you desire companionship- of any kind-_

And Solas does desire his companionship, in the abstract, divorced of its consequences, but that is not his motive for coming. Let Mahanon believe it, a least for the moment. “I heard we are to approach the mages tomorrow.”

It’s three weeks since Mahanon stormed from the war room in a fit of hungry panic. Three weeks of flurried preparation. Two weeks since the punctures on Solas’ neck healed, a week since the bruise on the back of Mahanon’s neck faded completely. And in that time Mahanon’s not rested once, bouncing from the Hinterlands to Storm Coast, demanding influence with each Venatori agent killed, each noble appeased. Mahanon navigates shem’len politics like a fish to water, and now the Inquisition is finally primed to meet the rebel mages. But Mahanon is not the Inquisition. Mahanon is one man. He’s not even mortal. And if he’s to be in his prime for the meeting, he requires blood.

Solas sees the exact moment Mahanon realizes his intent. His lips part briefly, a glimpse of tooth before restraint shuts his mouth. He stops sharpening his daggers and lets out a breath.

“It should only be a diplomatic meeting. No need for fighting.”

No need to be in fighting form, he means. But it’s an excuse, and not a very good one. The Chantry’s Conclave was supposed to be a diplomatic meeting, too.

“Regardless,” and Solas spots the moment Mahanon resigns himself to the exchange: he shifts from the edge to sitting cross-legged against the wall, back stiff. The change is- striking. Unsettling. “There is no harm in precaution.”

“Solas-”

“You’ve made your token refusal. Don’t be a child.”

“And what, take my medicine?”

“Your words, not mine.”

Mahanon laughs, familiar in the way it bubbles out in a manic spurt. Deny it or not, Mahanon is _hungry_. If he is to succeed with the mages, then he needs this.

“I…” Mahanon shuts his eyes for a moment, “We have to talk about. The last time.”

“Ah.”

_Mahanon in his lap. Mahanon beneath him on the bed. Mahanon’s teeth on his neck. And Solas biting back-_

“Is that all you have to say?”

And what could he say? That Mahanon woke something in him gone dormant for aeons? There is nothing to say. Not without exposing the truth of himself, or a part of it.

“I made a mistake,” he says, throat tight at the effort to keep himself from saying more. He’s made so _many_ mistakes, but the mistake of tangling himself with Mahanon was the least necessary among them.

Yet he wants to say more. It frightens him.

“Bleeding for me, or fucking me?”

Solas winces. Mahanon speaks always with intent. Each word carved to suit a purpose. His choice of phrase stings, even if Solas knows he doesn’t have the right.

“Solas-”

“The fucking.”

Mahanon smiles, grim.

“You seem pleased with yourself,” Solas sneers.

“I’m not. Pleased. We need to _talk,_ Solas.”

“There’s nothing to discuss,” he says, and slices his wrist above the bowl.

Mahanon sucks in a breath. “That's a coward’s answer.”

Solas stays silent. He knows he is no coward; he woke from the Uthenara and saw his world was gone. He is facing his mistakes. He is _putting the world right_.

Yet from Mahanon, it stings, and his wrist aches. The bowl he brought is shallow, made of a smooth dark wood that won’t show blood quite so starkly, but it takes time to fill. Cutting his wrist is less efficient than a bite, yet the thought of Mahanon again at his throat- again in his lap- again panting, hunger sated- again his tongue-

No, this is better.

When the bowl fills, Solas turns his hand so blood pools sluggish on his wrist. “Drink,” he says sternly and passes the bowl. Mahanon takes it, and Solas summons magic to heal his wrist.

“First, let me-” Mahanon sets the bowl aside and reaches for his arm, only to hover before touching. A breath passes. “May I?”

“You don’t need to prove your restraint to me,” he says softly.

“No?”

“On the contrary, it is I who-” Solas cuts himself off with a laugh, remembering the last time they sat like this in this cabin; he remembers Mahabon's hesitance, his patience. “You have my permission.”

He waits for warmth on his wrist, Mahanon licking away the last slow drops of blood. Instead fingers close atop the cut, stinging as they slick themselves in blood. Solas hisses.

“Ir abelas,” Mahanon says, and shuts his eyes. Like that night in the Mire, on the Avvar battlements, broken bone and blood. This close, Solas cannot help but watch Mahanon, the determined set of his jaw, the shape of his mouth, whispering, _Andruil enaste…_

Solas holds back a snarl by the skin of his teeth. It’s _wrong_ , invoking her name in healing when all she ever cared for was the hunt, death for its own sake. It consumed her, and her people, and she does not deserve Mahabon's reverence. He swallows his revulsion and narrows his focus to Mahanon’s fingers on his skin, the warm ache of it knitting slowly back together. He reminds himself: Mahanon is nothing like Andruil. Disciplined. Noble. A protector to his core.

What does that say about the Dalish elves?

What does that say about this world?

“Done,” Mahanon pulls him from his thoughts and tethers him here, in this moment, in this world.

He rolls his wrist experimentally. A twinge of pain creases his brow, but faint, like a memory felt through the Fade. It might cause trouble with his staff, but he has more mobility than anticipated. The wound is already scabbed cleanly over. A few days and it will disappear completely. “My thanks.”

“And mine to you,” Mahanon says, and takes the bowl in his hands. Blood moves thickly in the bowl, deep red turned forest green by the anchor as he brings it to his lips, and drinks.

Every shred of him speaks reverence: Small sips, eyes lidded. He brings the bowl down between swallows, looks at him, questions swimming in and out of their shared gaze: Mahanon, hazy-eyed, red-lipped, watching him watch him. Desire curls in his gut. He should look away. Leave, even. But-

he does not wish to look away. Andruil and her ilk had always fascinated him, as much as they disgusted him; their magic was strange, and fascinating, and new, accompanied always by wanton death. But Mahanon has proven he’s not a killer. In place of disgust, desire twists with curiosity and curls higher, constricts his chest. He wants.

Foolish, to believe keeping Mahanon’s teeth from his neck would temper his lust. It fans higher for the absence. Higher still with his curiosity. He wants to know Mahanon.

He drinks deeper now, no breaks between swallows. The anchor sputters to life, casts the cabin in green relief and sharpens his features. Light catches on his cheekbones, his adam’s apple. If he reached out to touch, Solas imagines he might slice his fingers on the arrows that cut across Mahanon’s face and trace their shapes in blood.

And it goes like that for what feels like ages. The anchor flickers. Mahanon drinks. Solas waits for him to finish and he should, he knows, avert his eyes when Mahanon's tongue darts out to lick the bowl clean. But he-

He cannot-

It is _captivating_.

“Tell me,” Solas rasps, reaching for distraction, for anything to distract himself from that sight. He clears his throat and tries again, settles on the first thought that takes hold. “What is it like?”

Mahanon opens his eyes slowly, hazy still, as if in the midst of an afterglow. No answer comes. Solas adds, “Feeding. I wish to know.”

“Blood strengthens our connection here. To our bodies. That’s all.”

“You avoided the question.”

“Perhaps.” He smiles thinly and sets the bowl aside. “Why do you even wish to know?”

“If you do not wish to speak of it… Forgive me. I will refrain from prying.” Of course he wishes to know. He always wished to know. Andruil kept her secrets jealously, but Mahanon does not have the corrupting influence of power hungry gods silencing him. He’s a Dalish elf, and a good man.

“It’s not that.” Mahanon uncrosses his legs to shift onto his side, languid. Solas notes the flush in his cheek, the haze still floating behind his eyes. Again desire curls around his chest. Again Solas ignores it. “You truly want to know?”

“Of course.”

Mahanon looks at him carefully, then rolls onto his back. “It’s like-” He reaches toward the ceiling, gaze somewhere beyond the roof, “This sense of nostalgia. Like remembering a place I knew, but can’t return to.” The words come pouring out, like a story Mahanon has barely kept inside himself. He rests his hands on his chest. “I apologize that I do not make much sense.”

Longing lodges in the hollow of Solas’ throat. He makes sense. Perfect sense. So much sense it aches. Memory flares to life behind his eyes: cities raised by magic, places where the fade was intrinsic to their being, where form held little meaning for how it could mold itself like clay-

“Would you go back?”

Mahanon tilts his head to look at him. “Why would I want to?”

Because the new form is wrong? A shadow of itself? Solas will do anything, to go back-

“I know your opinion of us-”

Us, vampires, or us, the Dalish? Solas feels- doesn’t know anymore. This world produced Mahanon and he-

“-But I protect my people. If I returned to how I was before, I’d have a bow, my daggers, and what else? I can do more like this.”

“And what you’ve lost-?”

Mahanon smiles thinly, and yet it still manages to reach his eyes, speaks of a tragedy long-healed. Not for the first time Solas wonders the circumstances of Mahanon’s turning. How he died.

“Do you wish me to lament over what has already changed? Of course I-” he shakes his head, “I told you, when I feed- One does not feel nostalgic for a thing they did not love. I take your life into mine, and for a moment it is as if I am living again.”

Again, the ache of memory in Solas’ chest, a world nearly forgotten even by the Fade, visible only in glimpses. Part of him sees it here, in Mahanaon: the best of what was, against all odds. Part of him cannot recognize Mahanon at all: so far from what was, and better for it.

It is-

Unnerving.

Before Solas collects himself, Mahanon continues. “But I am proud of what I am now. Nevermind what it means to the Dalish, if you like. What of the blast at the Conclave? I could have died with the rest.”

“I suppose that is true.”

“Does that satisfy your curiosity?”

Solas finds himself stroking the mark on his wrist.   _I take your life into mine, and for a moment-_

“To an extent, yes. Thank you.”

He has much to think about.


	2. 2

After negotiating alliance with the mages, Cullen sends them on ahead to carry news back to Haven. “Give Josephine time to figure out how to spin this to the Chantry,” Cullen explains, and carefully avoids the Herald’s eye. Which suited Mahanon fine; he met no one’s eye that day. Spoke only when necessary. 

It would take some time for the mages to be ready for travel, but their party was ready to travel now, and Mahanon is-- Solas isn’t sure. Sharp to anyone who looked at him. Poised to strike in a moment. Mahanon carries himself always with confidence, without fail. Even choked on hunger, there was power in his stride. And he cuts an imposing figure at their party’s head: shoulders back and eyes forward. But since the encounter with Alexius, Mahanon has not quite been himself. 

Mahanon is a man built to shoulder stress. He shoulders it the same way he shoulders hunger. And yet, that look in his eye, more than half-dead and far away. The Tevinter, Dorian, mutters something about magic gone wrong. Yet even in his flair for the dramatic, he says so little on the subject. Mahanon completed negotiations looking like a storm. It made the mages nervous. It makes Solas nervous, too. 

“Solas, was it?” 

He turns his head toward the voice. Dorian falls into step beside him. 

“Why do you ask?”

“Silly question.” Dorian answers himself as if Solas did not speak at all. Shem'len.  _ Tevinter  _ shem’len. Solas forces his posture to remain relaxed, unassuming. “Of course you’re Solas. Elven apostate who isn’t one of the Dalish? Can’t be that many of you in the South.”

“Fewer in the Tevinter, I would imagine.” 

“Hm. Fair point.” They walk in silence for a moment, Dorian at his elbow. Then, as if he cannot stand the silence, he continues, “But you are him, yes? You were with us in the Chantry at Redcliffe, when the Herald sealed that rift.” 

Solas inclines his head in answer, slipping easily into the role of a mild apostate. Perhaps an apostate with a sharp tongue, but an apostate nonetheless. Dorian does not seem like much of a threat at first glance, at second glance. But he is a man willing to fight his own people for a greater good. Solas is familiar with people like that. They always pose a threat. 

“Charmed, I’m sure.” 

“Do you need something?” 

“Right! I noticed-” Dorian rolls his wrist, “-you had a bit of trouble holding your staff. Some spindleweed can help with a pulled muscle. Felix makes this remarkable tonic with spindleweed and lyrium-” he lets out a short, sharp breath, some unnamed pain. Felix, Alexius’ son. They were close. “I should have asked for the recipe before we left.” 

“I… am sorry.”

“Whatever for?” 

Bravado. That, Solas understands. “It is difficult to leave a life behind like that. You want to build a better future for your people. That is a thankless task, and you’ll lose much.” 

“Well, someone has to do it.” 

_ Yes,  _ Solas thinks. _ Someone has to.   _

 

* * *

 

 

Back at Haven, the whole camp sits on edge. Mages not from Redcliffe filter in ahead of Cullen and the others; news travels fast among those in their position, particularly when the news offers a chance of freedom. 

For his part, the Herald keeps to himself. Solas catches glimpses, once with Josephine in flurried conversation -- the political ramifications of allying with the rebel mages, Solas can only imagine -- and several times with Leliana’s agents: whispered conversations of few words, messages passed.  _ Finality _ hangs over everything, even as Solas is delegated to helping apostates settle in. Josephine seemed to think his presence would calm them. 

The whole scene is-- 

Uncomfortably familiar. 

Cullen arrives as the sun scrapes near to the horizon. Grim faces filter through camp, but the apostates settle, more willing to trust now that proof of the Inquisition's alliance has arrived en masse. Solas hands his post off to another, and at last, retreats to the outskirts. He passes men and women hugging, reunions both anticipated and unexpected, all tearful.

That, too, is familiar. 

Even this far into Haven’s outskirts, the bustle of camp still reaches him. Cassandra’s been pushing the soldiers in Cullen’s stead since they arrived late last night. Her voice reaches him now, running drills.  _ Familiar, familiar, familiar.  _

An arrow whistles over his shoulder and lands solidly in the trunk of a pine not far in front of him. Solas throws a barrier up and turns with his staff in one smooth motion-- 

Laughter greets him. “Easy, Solas,” Mahanon steps around a tree, eyes glinting with mirth Solas hasn’t seen once since Alexius. It catches him off guard, how sorely he missed that look, like a hand around his throat. 

“Herald,” he greets. Mahanon's mirth flickers, barely, but Solas watches his expression closely enough enough to see it in an instant. The title? “How are you, Lethallin?” 

Mahanon slings the bow around his shoulder and sets to yanking out the arrow. “Once the mages settle, we make our second attempt on the Breach.” It is not much of an answer and yet it says the most. It explains his presence so far from the main camp: searching for reprieve, like himself. 

Perhaps not exactly like himself, but-- “Would you care for company?” 

 

While Mahanon lays down his bow and begins the process of setting up his whetstone, Solas searches the apothecary’s stocks for gauze. It’s not been long since Solas opened his wrist for Manahon, and even that brief maneuver with his staff made it ache. But the man who lived here first was no healer. Though tinctures still line the shelves, he finds no bandages, not even thread for stitches. 

“Do you tan the hides of rams you feed from?” he asks abruptly. 

“Sometimes,” Mahanon says slowly; too late, Solas sees his shoulders hitch, expression dimming in defense. “Does it matter?” 

“Ah-- no. How you supplement your needs means little to me, provided you do not harm another, and you are far too considerate to harm even when it’s offered,” he tries for a laugh; an apology, maybe, for breaching the subject even indirectly. “I require leather.” He gestures with his aching wrist. Enough time has passed that the scab has faded into pale new skin, little more than the kind of battle wounds he’s grown accustomed to. But the placement is poor, for any fighter, and worse still for a mage who relies on gesture. 

But any other place was too inconvenient, or too intimate. He shudders, and refuses to name the feeling. 

Were he stronger, his old self, true self, he could conjure magic with a blink; he’d require no staff, no foci, only his will. But he is new from the Uthenara, and his wrist aches. 

“For your wrist?”

“Yes,” he smiles, swallows down his frustration at his current form. “It's giving me some trouble.”

Mahanon lifts from his workspace on the bed and crosses to the meager wardrobe standing in a corner. He's repurposed it into a place for storage; Solas catches the glint of daggers, a worn quiver of ram hide, and a jerkin of soft nugskin. “Here.” Mahanon knocks the wardrobe shut and drops several lengths of wrapping in Solas’ arms. “It’s good leather for handles. Soft. Should be okay for your wrists. Better than nothing.”

It is possible that one of the mages has a material more suitable on hand, but-- Solas does not want their questions, their curiosity, and the mark on his wrist would beg for both. He wraps a length of leather around his fingers to get a sense for its width. “It will do.”

They settle into silence. Mahanon sharpens the last of his daggers and hefts each blade in his hand, lips dipped in a frown of concentration profound enough to rival any scholar. Solas takes his time with the wrappings; Mahanon is far more interesting. 

“Are you watching me?” 

Solas hums, “Perhaps.”

“Hm.” Mahanon looks down at him over the length of a blade, gaze glinting bright with firelight. “You know, when you asked if I desired company, I thought perhaps you meant to…” he trails off. 

“Bleed?” Solas offers.

“Among other things, yes. I did not wish to turn you away, and so you are here, but if that is what you intended…”

Solas shakes his head. “You are not the only one who needs his strength.” To say the thought did not cross his mind would be a lie. It crosses his mind often. Mahanon is the one with the anchor. Mahanon is the Herald. For all that Solas needs his strength, Mahanon surely needs it more. And to have Mahanon at his throat again, to bleed again, and so soon, how reckless, and yet- 

“ _ No _ , Solas.” 

He was, apparently, quiet for a moment too long.

“I know.” 

The anchor casts a smooth green glow as if to belly their sudden tension. It flickers once, and then--  _ laughter _ . 

“Now I know how Aridhel must have felt with all my pestering.”

Solas’ chest still sticks on the laughter,  _ sweet and clear like a note plucked from the fade _ , but the part of his mind that never quite sleeps recognizes the name. “The other Lavellan vampire?” 

“Yes, her. Before I--” Mahanon sets his weapons to the side, as if to put away thoughts of the Breach, “When I was alive, I thought the world of her.” 

“You bled for her, as I do for you.” He'd revealed as much before

Solas suspects he still thinks the world of her. It is not difficult to hear his reverence.

“Yes. More than the few times I implied.” Mahanon speaks so plainly that Solas can only assume he in fact feels anything but  _ plainly  _ about the past arrangement. “Vampires protect their clan, but the act of feeding can be--” Mahanon glances in his direction, but with eyes cast low at his wrist, then to his neck, and rubs at the back of his own, where Solas bit back in passion. Ah. Is that what he is asking? “Aridhel refused me, when I did not act in my own interest. I would follow her example.” 

“You pride yourself on your restraint.” Solas ignores the underlying question, settles for a half-answer:  _ Focus on yourself _ . He means  _ you _ in the most general sense.  _ You _ , vampires.  _ You _ , the Dalish.  _ You _ , Mahanon.

“I would be no use to anyone if I knew no restraint.” 

“Must one be useful?” 

Andruil served a purpose, once. Bloodlust in a time of war to protect one’s people serves a purpose. She was changed, not corrupt. But then-- 

_ Generals to kings, kings to gods.  _

“Does your dreaming in the Fade serve a purpose?” Mahanon fires back. “You told me you first walked the Fade for lack of activities worthy of a mage-- any knowledge you gained was coincidental. Your dreaming harms no one. When you gave your blood freely, I harmed no one. But if a demon approached you… if you failed to  _ resist _ , that harms. It is the same for me.”

“So one need not serve a purpose?”

“I'm saying you should minimize the harm you do, regardless of purpose. Everything else is semantics.” 

“But if you harm one, to save two others-” he presses, does not even know what answer he wants to hear. 

“Your dreaming serves a purpose, even if that purpose is your pleasure. But if you became an abomination-- if I lacked restraint--”

“You’ve thought much about this.” 

“I have. I have to. Do mages not ask themselves the same questions? A Keeper knows not to trust even the helpful spirits.”

Again Mahanon surprises him. This shadow of the People; morseso, a descendant of Andruil, shadow of a shadow, but he thinks, speaks,  _ acts _ with such wisdom. “You give me much to think about once more.” 

“Once more, is it?” 

“Ah, well-” Solas shakes his head and laughs, “Yes, once more. You are a rare man, Mahanon.”

Mahanon shakes his head in turn. “Before this,” he gestures around them, at himself, anchor singing soft green against his chest, “I was a Dalish hunter.  I am not rare. And when the last rift closes, I will return to my clan.” He tilts his chin high, pride or defiance, or both.

“To serve another purpose?”

“To serve another purpose.”


	3. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relevant elfy bits translated in the end notes.

Against the Breach, Solas the apostate falls away. He is Fen’harel again: a leader, if only in this moment.

“Let his will draw from you!”

Behind him: the mages, not his people but it feels like it, here, with their power at his back.

The Herald thrusts his hand toward the Breach and the Fade ripples around them, licks off Solas’ skin. Mahanon cries out but pushes forward, flushed bright with the effort, with his blood.

Solas lifts his staff, “Now!”

A white pulse shakes the air.

The Fade pushes its last against the Veil, claws to get through, to rip its claws through and rejoin reality as the world once was. For that one moment Solas feels as himself again, as an ancient elf immortal and unchanging--

His head cracks against the stone, ears ringing with the Fade’s final cry of resistance. He opens his eyes as the Fade bleeds away, Veil scarred but whole.

In the center of the crater left behind, Mahanon tilts his head and roars victory to the sky.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes the walk back to Haven for Solas to settle back into his skin, to remember how to be the elven apostate and not Fen’harel, commander of an army. It felt so _good_ to be that again, to have that again: Mages at his back, the Fade so near he could taste it.

How long does Mahanon take to settle back into his skin? In this moment, the Fade tastes remarkably like blood.  

Even now Mahanon leads at the front, a price of being the Herald. He did so well.

“I do believe this is the first time I’ve seen you smile,” Dorian says. Solas glances at him and raises an eyebrow but cannot find it in himself to feel annoyance. Accomplishments such as theirs - sealing a breach in the Veil itself - foster camaraderie in unlikely places, even in Tevinter mages.

“I smile plenty. I simply have fewer reasons to do so in your presence.”

Dorian laughs. “You wound me.”

They both smile.

By the time they pass through the gates of Haven, a celebration is already in full swing. Instruments join the celebration. Dancers join the instruments. Haven brims with noise.

“I am going to go fetch us some of that delightfully brutish Southern ale,” Dorian announces, and takes his leave toward the tavern. Solas finds himself a place near the celebration, but not within it. The atmosphere is infectious, and he is still settling back into his role. Throwing himself into the revelry would be-- _unwise_.  

“Here you are,” Dorian reappears to press a tin flagon in his direction.

“I don’t know why you think I want to drink this.”

“We’re _celebrating.”_ Dorian rolls his eyes.

Solas takes a drink.

“You also need some of this.” Dorian presents a vial filled with a brown, viscous substance. It does not look particularly appealing.

“What is this?”

“One of those spindleweed concoctions I told you about. I brought a few with me from Redcliffe, and I noticed your wrappings.”

Ah, the potion for sore muscles. Made by that boy, the one with the blight. “Are you sure you wish to give this to me?”

“We’re in this together, yes? We seal the last of these rifts and then -- poof -- back in Tevinter.” He takes a long drink of ale, hissing when he’s done. “Take it.”

“A kind gesture.” He slips the vial into place on his belt. They stand and drink and watch the dancers in companionable silence.

“It’s strange,” Dorian says, not slurring by any means, but his cheeks flush with drink. “I don’t quite miss the dancers back at home, but watching all this, it does make me feel a bit…”

“Nostalgic?”

“Yes, that’s the word.”

There are moments when Solas almost recognizes a dance - a step here, a note there, pieces of the grand, complicated numbers they danced in Arlathan. Their parties could last for days; they had no need to rush, and certainly not with _revelry._

Yes, nostalgic. Solas can understand that.

“And where are you going?”

Solas hands his drink to Dorian and smiles. “To celebrate.”

He crosses to the fire where Mahanon stands huddled to its warmth. Varric gives him a knowing look, which Solas deliberately ignores.

“Solas.” Mahanon greets him with a smile just this side of too _sharp,_ a smile with teeth. He’s not settled back into his skin, either, but Solas knows how one might solve that.

“Dance with me.”

Mahanon’s smile gentles, goes smooth at the edges. He says, “Okay.”

They start wrist to wrist like the other dancers. Solas knows few modern dances, but he is accustomed to courts, and watching the soldiers dance, he has the gist of it. And Mahanon is Dalish. As far as Orlesian dances go, they likely know about the same.

Not two measures into their dance, Mahanon hooks a leg around his calf.

“Do you know this one?” he pulls just _so,_ as if to knock the balance from him.

Solas twists into it. Muscle memory takes him through the next few steps, quick and sinuous, a mimicry of battle. An Elvhen dance, a soldiers’ dance. He knows it well.

Mahanon moves with him. “You _do_ know it.”

He grins, feeling lighter than he has since waking. The steps come easy. Familiar. _“Yes.”_

They slow into a lazy turn, meant to represent a breath between blows.

“I learned it at my first Arlathvhen.” Solas wonders if Mahanon felt nostalgic, too. “It is good to meet another who knows it, even if you are not-” he catches himself.

“Not?”

“Not Dalish.” Mahanon punctuates this with a smooth step to the left, right arm extended as if to accommodate a staff. He has no staff, of course. He is no mage.

Does Mahanon even know the meaning behind these steps? “True, but it's older than the Dalish. It was a war dance. A fitting choice for this evening.”

The next step stutters. Mahanon recovers into a sweeping gesture that puts distance between them. Traditionally that move comes later in the dance, toward the end, but it would be more surprising if all the steps remained intact. Solas adapts.

“We save this for celebrations.”

“For victories, yes.” Victory is a celebration of sorts. The translation makes sense. It is  almost _accurate._

Again the stutter, awkward footwork so unlike the predator’s grace Mahanon usually commands. Again the dance skips steps as Solas knew them; Mahanon hooks his leg around his calf once more, to close the dance as it began.

“It means more than that,” Mahanon says. Breath burns in Solas’ chest, a good ache that sets him alight, but with a quieter flame, tamed and settled. More Solas than Fen’harel now. More himself. Mahanon goes on, “We don't dance it just for war. Can you imagine-- the Dalish, fighting humans? There’d be an Exalted March.”

 _What of elves, fighting other elves?_ But the very idea is so foreign to Mahanon that it does not even cross his mind. In some ways, the elves are more unified now than they had ever been, in their shared trauma at the hands of men. Solas slept through the March, but he sees the scars on every Dalish face, in every alienage. If only he was awake, he could have _helped--_

Perhaps… perhaps he can help. Offer healing. A piece of the past. “There are other dances, for other occasions. Marriages, births. The ancient elves loved ritual. Every occasion had a dance. To dance this outside of war would have been considered--”

“I don't care what it used to be. It means _this_ now. It means celebration, it means--”

“How can you claim not to care? This is all the Dalish care about--”

“Not me! I hunt and I protect and I pray to Andruil but I'm not _from_ Arlathan. Tell a Keeper! Come to the Arlathvhen, help our people--”

“ _Our_ people,” he balks. “ _Your_ people don't-- I tried, and they did not listen."

"But you're telling me.”

_Because you danced this with me. You remind me of--_

"You’re different from other Dalish."

Mahanon takes a step back, leaves their dance unfinished, all those skipped steps Solas could have shown him.

"I am no different than any other Dalish! You see my vallaslin." _How could he not, ugly things on such a dear face._ "I’m one of Andruil's chosen. I protect _our_ people, while _you--”_ Mahanon dips into a growl, cuts himself off and tries again, _“Ma banal las halamshir var vhen!”_

Solas' stomach twists at the old tongue, his tongue. It churns up something deeper than nostalgia, deeper than longing. But Mahanon is wrong. Solas is _trying_ to help the elves. _Restore_ the elves. He--

A bell sounds.

Mahanon looks to the mountains. “Are those torches?”

More bells erupt through Haven. Pilgrims scatter.

“To arms!” Cullen yells.

Daggers seem to manifest in Mahanon’s hands. He shifts his weight, and the rest of him follows: no longer Dalish, or even Mahanon, but hunter, vampire. Solas has never been close enough to see the change in such detail, always at the back, casting barriers, throwing lightning.

Andruil’s chosen indeed.

“Come,” Mahanon says cooly. They move opposite the crowd, toward the gates.

“Under what banner?” asks Josephine.

“No banner.”

A figure on the mountain peak, clad in red and a Templar’s crest looks down on the valley.

“None?”

A second figure emerges by the first. Even from here, Solas recognizes the orb. His orb. Corypheus.

 

* * *

 

 

There is a path.

There is a path that may save their civilians. Compassion speaks it to them, Compassion in the shape of a small boy with knives and smoke. A spirit-form that reminds him so much of-

Of other battles. Other creatures claiming toward godhood.

Mahanon draws himself to full height. Enormous when he wants to be. He yells, “If it will save my people-!”

“ _Our_ people,” Cullen says firmly, “We all fight for the Inquisition. It is not your burden alone, Herald.”

Mahanon throws up his arm, anchor brilliant green, too-bright as if swollen with overuse. It will kill him, someday. “I’m the one with the mark! I’m the one you call Herald! The Inquisition’s people are _my_ responsibility. They always have been. And if distracting this Elder One means I can save my people, then--”

“As Cullen said, the Inquisition is not yours alone,” Solas cuts in, “I will go with you, and keep the templars off long as I can.” And should the Magister show himself, perhaps take back his orb, and end this fight. End all of this.

The snarl that threatened to steal Mahanon’s voice rips free as he whirls on him, gaze still wide and wild from the battle-thrill, bloodlust narrowing pupils to sharp points that seem to nearly glow. Solas digs his staff hard into the stone and meets his gaze, flinches like teeth bore into his neck.

“You wouldn’t know your _people_ even if they bit you.” His snarl bounces off the chapel walls, already emptying of people. Dorian and the spirit-boy worked quickly. Mahanon lets out a breath, short and sharp, then his shoulders sag. A sigh. “I want you at my side for this. Barriers. Cassandra and I draw fire, Varric controls the field.”

“Herald,” Cassandra uses the firm voice of a commander, but with soft eyes that speak sympathy. She knows this is a bad situation. They all do. “If you are to draw the Elder One’s attention, you must be alive to do it. I will handle the Templars. With Solas’ magic, it is doable,” her voice softens. “We must not act in haste.”

Mahanon shuts his eyes. “When this Elder One shows, you run through that gate. You do not look back. You catch up with the others and get them out safe.”

Cullen and Cassandra exchange a look. Varric touches his arm. The gesture draws a rare smile to his tired face, buckled beneath the weight. Then Mahanon looks at him. Looks at him with that tired smile, and though Solas opens his mouth to speak, no words come, only a tightness in his shoulders as he digs harder into the stone. Mahanon says, “I have already lived far longer than I should have.”

Perhaps he means the explosion at the Conclave. Perhaps he means to draw on the providence Cassandra still proclaims brought Mahanon to them. But their eyes meet and Solas sees a Dalish hunter dead in the grass, dead or dying only to be tethered here with blood, with purpose, changed but not corrupted.

“Mythal guide you,” Solas says, and means it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ma banal las halamshir var vhen: You do nothing to further our people.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relevant elvhen in the end notes

"Solas," is the first thing Mahanon says when they find him freezing in the snow. Freezing and alive and how could he possibly be  _ alive. _

"Solas," he sobs as they lift him from the snow. He clings, bends in on himself like that first time in the cabin, "I want- need-" mouth at his neck. 

“Be still,” he says as they bring him to the tents. Mahanon’s breath is cold at his throat. Cold as he rests him on a healer’s cot. “Be still,” he says again, begs Mahanon not to do it, not to bite him yet, to only  _ wait _ . 

Mahanon is cold as he shakes everyone from the tent. Solas is cold, too, as he brings Mahanon again to his throat and waits to face what his pride had wrought. He has no time to center himself, to close his eyes and breathe But no teeth come. Lips skirt over skin, down the the length of his neck to the juncture of his forearm, and still nothing but a trembling boy in his arms and a trembling man wrenching himself away. A trembling man folding in on himself with hunger. Trembling, trembling. 

Solas steeled himself to bear the brunt of a feral thing, but this creature is unmistakably Mahanon. "Please please  _ please ma halani ma halani ma- _ _ "  _ like some fevered soldier begging for relief. The elvhen makes it worse. He pulls back but Mahanon follows, makes a high noise in his throat.

"Wait.” 

The broken noise chokes on itself, shrivels down an octave, and for a moment Solas is almost glad Mahanon is beside himself, that he won’t remember- 

Solas shakes, but still makes quick work of the leather wrapping his wrist. Beneath, the scab is already open, rubbed raw. “I will help, if you give me a moment.”

Mahanon gives no indication he heard.  _ “Ma halani ma halani mahalani-”  _ a constant, uneven stream as Solas unwraps the leather at his wrist. Does Mahanon even know he’s speaking, or is he simply caught in his last moment of coherence before-- before this, reaching camp, surviving when even one of Andruil’s surely should have died.

_ If you can call this survival, _ says some unfriendly part of him, the part that asked,  _ how many lives have you taken in preserving this form? _

Solas drags the dagger across his wrist. 

The stream cuts off. Mahanon -- let it be Mahanon and not a monster, not just what’s left of him -- flinches as if struck. Looks over at him-- no, at his wrist, at the blood --and goes absolutely still. 

Solas has never used blood magic, but he imagines it must feel something like this: Mahanon’s undivided attention, a dagger in his hand, blood on his wrist and magic burning the air around him. Mahanon opens his mouth as if to speak but chokes before any other sound leaves him. 

_ “Hush.” _

A shudder passes through Mahanon, full-body. None of Andruil’s would have ever allowed themselves to endure this, not when they could simply  _ take _ . Were Solas in Mahanon’s place, he might very well-- no, he knows he would take. Could justify it. Has justified many things. 

Fool. Mahanon would see himself starve before he took what is offered

_ And isn’t that remarkable? _

He cups the back of Mahanon’s neck and pulls him closer, down, mouth in line with his wrist. Surely the intent is clear, even to-- to whatever state Mahanon is in. But though he allows himself to be guided, he still--

“It is alright, da’len. Take what you need.”

Cold lips close on his wrist, then teeth, fangs. Solas takes a deep breath and holds it. Steadies himself as he had before.

_And that went well,_ he sneers to himself. _Bedding Mahanon._ _How steady of him. How careful. How necessary and controlled._

Pain lances up his arm even as heat swoops through him, makes a home of his chest and stays. Mahanon digs, pulls, drags, tears him open and only then does Solas realize the ferocity of his grip on Mahanon’s nape, how his fingers leave white prints where his own teeth once did the same. 

_ Not much more, _ he thinks, maybe speaks aloud, he isn’t sure, but he does not let go, push Mahanon’s mouth away, nothing. The pain is nothing. Bleeding: necessary. And easy. He does not tear as deeply as Andruil would have. Even now, he is so much more than her. So much more than Solas expected. He

is reaching his limit. 

“Enough.”

Mahanon digs in harder,  _ You will not take me from my prey _ , like the vampire Solas expected from the beginning but never found. 

_ “I said-” _

A whimper this time. Mahanon holds his arm, clamps it to his mouth, brow drawn tight as if in pain. Maybe not  _ you will not take my prey from me,  _ maybe closer to,  _ Please let me have.  _

“Da’len,” Solas eases his grip, slips his fingers up into Mahanon’s hairline to cup the back of his head. Another noise, softer, more whine than growl. “Mahanon, enough.”

The teeth ease away. It hurts worse than opening his vein, than fangs widening the wound. Blood springs immediately to the surface, pools and drips, finds a path up the length of his forearm; Mahanon chases after it with his tongue, eyes half-open. Warmth twists with the ache. The chorus of  _ ma halani _ does not continue. 

“Are you,” his voice grates low like a man just choked. He tries again, no louder, “How do you feel?” 

No response. Mahanon finishes chasing the last drop and returns to the wound, eyes shut once more. Gentle, Solas pushes him to lay flat on the bed, and he goes without comment, without reaction, just a heaving chest and blood on his lips and the anchor humming weakly.

_ Recovering, that is all. He will wake as himself, as Andruil would.  _

_ (Between her periods of madness,  _ reminds a cruel, quiet part of him.)

“Sleep.” Solas tugs on the anchor, pushes Mahanon near to the Fade as he could be, and demands he sleep. With the last of his endurance, Solas pours what remains of his mana into his wrist, demands that the skin heal but the wound merely scabs. No matter. The bleeding stopped. 

He rises from the cot. Collects himself, waits until his swaying slows and exits the tent with his back straight. He does not lean on his staff for support. He is Fen’harel, and he can handle...  

A warm hand presses into his back and guides him to his feet. Had he fallen? He can’t recall. 

“...did you not take any lyrium?” 

Ah, Dorian. Solas shakes his head, leans on his staff. Leans on Dorian, too. “Did not require…” he starts. Dorian moves in and out of focus: dishevelled, hair slick to his forehead despite all the snow. Solas shivers. 

“...the  _ worst _ healer I’ve ever seen.” Dorian keeps talking. The scenery changes around them, from medical tents to campfires, soldiers huddling for warm. 

“Rest. I simply- I need rest.” 

“Like hell. You _ do _ know how much mana spirit healing requires, I assume?” he presses an uncorked vial of lyrium into his face. “Drink that, then we’ll talk.” 

“Mana is not the issue,” he protests, but his hand shakes around the vial so he tips it back and lets the cool wash of magic clear his head. Almost immediately, he straightens himself, steps away from Dorian’s hand. “I am fine.” 

To his credit, Dorian makes no move to steady him again. Of all the Inquisition, he understands pride well. Solas is glad of that, at least. 

“You do know healers aren’t supposed to need healing  _ themselves. _ Rather defeats the whole purpose.”

“Mahanon is…”

“A special case,” Dorian finishes, “I know. But so are you. Do you know any other experts on the Fade? We Tevinter mages try to stay away from that vein of study. Baggage, you know.” He huffs. “Next time, Solas? Just ask for help.”

 

* * *

 

 

The night is cold, and Solas aches. His wrist, surely. But his legs ache from marching and his arms from fighting and each cold shudder paints the picture of another valley. He imagines the pilgrims coughing outside his tent with pointed ears, hears each dying moan whisper to him in elvhen. 

And each time Solas draws near the Fade, almost  _ sleeps _ , Compassion cuts into him as a too-bright blinding light that illuminates, searches the deep corners of himself for hurts he would much rather remain in darkness. 

Solas wakes to a shadow in the sky.

He blinks to alertness, struck suddenly with a certainty that he must follow, the kind of certainty that strikes unquestioned to a dreaming mind. He must hunt the shadow down. 

It has been so long since he wore the wolf, but one does not forget the sure stride of a god. He keeps to the shadows as if he was born there. With new eyes, the shadow above sharpens to an owl, soaring above the city streets.

He follows. (He stalks.) 

The city is empty. Arlathan, enormous and dark as if the only other consciousness beyond himself is the the creature far above. It makes the hunt a challenge. A thrill. 

He follows to a hall of murals, each familiar and yet when he looks they seem to change their shape and twist and he is not sure what that means. 

At the end of this hall: A throne. In the throne: A hare. It holds his gaze. She blinks to him, patiently. The owl is following her, he realizes with a lurch, unsure why that frightens him and too slow to wonder why because the owl is here, too. 

The hare smiles somehow- seems to morph and grow until the muzzle turns to teeth and she grins to him, to them-

The owl resolves into the shape of a man. As Solas knew it would. As he always knew it would. A man with deep brown skin, her vallaslin and a green scar cross the palm. 

The hare- the woman- Andruil leaps to them. 

Fen’harel howls. 

And the dream ends.

 

* * *

 

 

It is hours before Mahanon wakes, but when he does, news spreads quickly through the camp:  _ The Herald, returned. The Herald back from the dead. The Herald, the Herald. _ Singing. Mahanon is still himself, then, or they would not call such a monster  _ Herald. _ It eases his fears as much as new fears ( _ old but new again _ ) fester to the surface. He cannot bear to watch them make Mahanon out into the herald of a god. All too familiar with the way legend grows beyond you. (The terrible necessity.) And so Solas stays to the edge of camp, and tries his hardest not to listen.

When the singing quiets, Mahanon finds him staring out into the mountains, a torch of veilfire lit beside him. For a moment they stand quietly together.

“Mother Giselle said you wouldn't let anyone in my tent.”

“Healing requires significant concentration,” Solas replies vaguely.

“That’s not an answer.”

“You asked no question.” 

Veilfire casts a blue pallor across Mahanon’s features, paints him deader than he’s ever looked, almost as dead as he was in the tent, tethers of blood that hold him here swiftly coming undone. Solas’ stomach rolls. They nearly lost Mahanon.  _ He _ nearly lost Mahanon. 

Everyone, this world and everyone in it should be like dust to him. Already dead, and yet-- 

“I suppose you do not owe me answers. I should--” something flits across his face, softens his brow to a gentle curve even as his lips twist into a frown, “Ma serannas. ”  _ My thanks _ , he says, reverts to elvhen the same way Solas reverts to elvhen, when the language of this world is just not quite  _ enough.  _ The way he did in the tent, beside himself and begging,  _ ma halani, ma halani. _

Solas inclines his head. He wants to say, _You owe me no thanks_ , to tell him _, Halam'shivanas_ _._ Instead he says, “You remind me of another elf. One who cared this deeply for her people.” _Mythal, the best of them._ “For this she was betrayed by other elves in power. The path Mother Giselle has set you on-- the path you have always been on --is not simple. The more you achieve, the harder your task becomes.” 

“You speak as if you knew her,” Mahanon says softly, does not look him in the eye. Veilfire still turns his face to pale blue death. Solas does not let himself look away. 

“She is from a time now known only through the Fade.” Denying Mythal is not a lie he could ever tell with conviction, nor would he wish to, so he keeps his answer vague.

Mahanon laughs without humor. “You said ‘other elves in power.’ Of course you knew her by the Fade.”

And yet he does not sound convinced. 

“May I see your wrist?” He looks meaningfully at the bandage. A proper one this time, not a stop-gap measure to keep the muscle functioning. Solas is not accustomed to pushing his body like this, not even a year after waking. 

“It was your wrist, yes? I only want- I wish to see.”

Of course he does. 

Is it not enough to simply know the wound exists? It is deep, and aches, but Solas knew what he was getting into from the moment he deigned to offer, back at Haven, in the cabin, when the Inquisition was  _ simpler.  _ Nothing good will come of letting Mahanon see what his unfettered need made of skin. He does not need to see the evidence quite so plainly-- 

(Evidence of what he could be and yet  _ is not, _ still, against all odds--) 

“Please, Solas.” 

Wordlessly, Solas presents his arm, and Mahanon begins the slow process of unwrapping it right here in the snow. Cold affects Mahanon more than it does the living, yet he goes about this work with quiet focus and steady hands. 

“There was some tearing,” he warns, as if to somehow soften Mahanon’s reaction before it forms. He knows the moment Mahanon finishes his unwrapping by his stillness. 

“You give too much,” Mahanon says softly, and releases his arm.

“I do not see how we had much of a choice.”

“There is always a choice. You did not have to-” 

“If you like. I did not _ have _ to do anything, but I made the  _ choice _ in which you lived. That was the better option.”

“I’ve already cheated death. I'm not sure how many more times I deserve to do so.”

“You were not yet dead when Cassandra brought you back to camp. You would have taken someone’s blood, so better it be mine, given freely.”

_ But if I failed to  _ resist _ … _

“I-”

“I am tired of your stubbornness. I do not  _ care _ for your  _ Vir’Bellan’an. _ _ ” _  It means nothing to him, less than nothing, if it denied Mahanon his life. The world yet needs him. Solas yet needs him. 

“I know that. It is  _ Dalish. _ But forgive me for believing you at least respected it, for my sake. Just when I felt we understood our differences, you remind me how  _ thoughtless _ you flat-ears can be.” He turns back toward camp.

“I care about  _ you, _ Mahanon.” Solas takes him by the arm. “Would you have me let you die? One does not go to war without getting one’s hands bloody. There are some principles that simply cannot-- that are not meant for times like these.” 

“The path exists for a reason.”

“You worry without the path, you are a monster.”  _ War makes monsters of anyone, _ made Solas into Fen’harel, Andruil into vampire-mother. He does not say this. He says, “I have known monsters. I promise you are not one.” 

Mahanon sags, and Solas releases his hold. 

“But now you see how easily I can become--” he chokes on himself, “I don’t even remember doing that.” He turns to face him again, glances at his wrist. “I could have killed you.”

_ Unlikely _ , sneers a part of him. Solas shakes his head. “You still knew yourself. You responded to your name, and stopped when I said to take no more,” Solas wants very badly to take him by the arm again. Touch him. Reassure them both. “A monster would not find itself so unnerved by the thought of sacrificing principle.” 

_ What does it say _ , asks a quiet, growling voice, the part of him that is, has always, and only ever will be Fen’harel,  _ that you abandon principle so easily? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ma halani: Help me  
> Ma serannas: Thank you  
> Halam'shivanas: The sweet sacrifice of duty.  
> Vir’Bellan’an: Loosely translates to The Way of Eternity. The name of the code Dalish vampires follow. Similar codes include the Vir Tanadhal, which is followed by Dalish hunters.


	5. Chapter 5

Solas is barely settled in the library when Dorian approaches him, looking like a storm. The Veil holds strong here, strong by design, but magic still licks off him, heating the stones as he walks. 

“Dorian. Is everything all right?”

“Peachy,” Dorian says, wry. “An ancient magister climbs out of the Maker’s asshole and nearly kills us all -- but the Inquisitor found us a castle, so it’s not all bad.”

“Ah, Corypheus. If I had not seen it myself, I would not have believed it.” 

“You and the entire world,” Dorian mutters under his breath.

“Is there something you need from me?”

“Yes, actually, uhm.” Dorian does not pace, exactly, but shifts his weight as if working through apprentice footwork. Nervous habit, perhaps. Solas never noticed. “May we talk?”

“If you wish.”

“Privately, if you please.” And though he says  _ if you please, _ fire still taunts the air around them, pushes just enough against the Veil to make itself known. It lacks the subtlety Solas has come to expect from Southern mages, but then, Dorian is not a Southern mage. 

Is that what this is about?

“Corypheus was one of your countrymen. Was he not?” 

Dorian dims. “Yeah… Yes. He was.” 

“I’ve taken up quarters in the garden, nearest the gazebo. I’ll retire by this evening, should you wish to talk in privacy.” Solas has a reputation for knowing things lost to history, things tucked deeply in corners of the Fade where even Tevinter  _ somniari _ might hesitate to venture. Perhaps Dorian has questions, seeks advice. Solas suppose he at least owes it to Dorian to try.

 

* * *

 

 

As soon as he is settled, Solas seeks Mahanon out in his quarters. 

The Inquisitor’s room occupies Skyhold’s highest point, as is only fitting. But the mountain air is cool. And the high points, even colder. 

Mahanon greets him with a tired sigh. "Why are you here, Solas?" 

He hates how that sounds. Resigned. Tired. 

"I wish to discuss some things with you.” 

Mahanon begging,  _ ma halani, ma halani.  _

"Could you be more specific?"

"I am in your quarters, am I not?" 

For a moment, Mahanon is quiet. Them he says, “My quarters,” and shakes his head. “I’m still not used to that. Creators, what have I gotten myself into?” He wanders out onto the balcony, stares out at the sun dipping behind the mountains. The day starts late and ends early here, mountains on all sides. How fitting. 

“For what it is worth, Mahanon-- you’ll wear the title well.” 

For a moment they stand in silence. From this angle, Solas can read only the lines of Mahanon’s back; how they shorten, just enough to betray discomfort.  Mahanon props his arms onto the banister, so that Solas may see how the last rays of sunlight cast his skin to a brown so rich that his vallaslin seem to melt within it, so that Solas might almost forget who he is, what he is, and see only the Elvhen, Mahanon, wise beyond all expectation. 

“You wanted us to talk,” what feels like an age ago, back at Haven, before they even had the rebel mages at their side. “I’m here now. May we talk?”

“Thought we already had that talk. You said there’s nothing to talk about. Did you change your mind?”

Solas sees the question for what it truly is: an opportunity, and more than he deserves. “I… yes. I needed time to consider. It has been some time for me.”

“Didn’t seem like it.”

“One makes few friends when they’ve led a life like mine.” Not a lie; the life of an apostate is as lonely as the life of a rebel lord. Even the reasons are remarkably similar. No one to trust. “And I have known far fewer friends as remarkable as you.”

Mahanon turns to him fully, haloed by the setting sun so that Solas cannot read his face. “And what kind of life is that, Solas? The life on an apostate?” He straightens, and they stand eye to eye: a reminder that Mahanon is the warrior between them, with all the bearing and shape that accompanies such training. “You give twice the counsel as the advisors--  _ Creators, _ they’re my advisors. Even on shem’len politics.  _ Noble _ politics. Josephine knows who holds the titles, but you know the game.  _ The  _ Game.”

He looks right  _ through _ him. Solas longs for the Fade, but Mahanon cannot linger there, sleeps but does not dream. How fortunate for him. How unfortunate for Solas. 

“I’ve journeyed more than any Dreamer, seen things-”

“Yes, you’re a Dreamer. Have you forgotten my clan trains them? But when you…” he shuts his eyes for a moment, as if picking his words carefully. Solas braces himself, shapes story after story that might disguise himself and satisfy Mahanon, but has no idea which to tell, what Mahanon would find convincing, or what he wished to hear. 

Mahanon starts again, “When we had sex-- Solas, people don’t give  _ orders _ like that. Not without experience.”

Bedding him was a mistake,  _ such _ a mistake, and not the kind that can be undone.. 

“If you were displeased--”

“Did I seem displeased?” 

“Ah-- no. No, you did not.” 

“Good.” His voice dips low, enough that it could not be the trick of an active mind, a wishful mind. He’s-  _ flirting.  _ “Were you?”

“No,” be breathes. He would make the mistake again. Wants to. Solas prefers his sacrifices be both calculated and necessary. Bedding Mahanon was neither, but still he wants. 

“You did not visit my quarters to discuss this,” Mahanon says. A statement. The truth. 

“It can wait, lethallin.” 

A gust of wind sharpens his mind, draws him back to his purpose, and so he asks what he came to ask. 

“Has the mark changed you in some way? Your mind, your- spirit.”

“I am what I have always claimed to be.”

“And what is that, Inquisitor?” 

He reminds Mahanon not of who he is, but what he has become, like a thumb pressing into bruise. He listens for a cry of pain, watches for the flinch. 

Instead laughter ricochets off the mountains and back again, only to cut off like a bird dashed against the glass and reanimate into disdain, resignation  _ “Inquisitor _ .”

“You seem displeased.” 

“The mark did not change me,” he says at length; not a cry of pain, or a flinch, but a jaw set tight. “I am-- I have always been a protector. I watch over my clan.”

And wouldn’t Andruil find that amusing, adorable, pathetic. 

“And now I’m  _ Inquisitor. _ These are my people now, the Inquisition, the soldiers, all mine.”

Solas tilts his head, repeats, “Yours?” 

“ _ Yes! _ When our soldiers pledge to the Inquisition, they pledge themselves to  _ me. _ I’m their  _ Herald. _ I can only pretend I’ve nothing to do with it for so long. I…” Fervor leaves him in a rush. Mahanon leans against him. “...I couldn’t save them all.” 

Solas touches his shoulder, the back of his neck. For a moment they remain this way, quiet and cool and alone.

“I have heard it said,” Solas begins, “That Andruil was more than goddess of the hunt. She was a goddess of sacrifice. Her patrons are the owl  _ and _ the hare, are they not? Sustenance comes always at the sacrifice of another. There is nothing  _ inherently _ evil, in that.” 

Mahanon lifts his head and composes himself, scant few breaths of space between them. 

“Sacrifice is unavoidable. A leader’s true task is to know the necessary from the careless. Your path- the Vir Bellan’an. It is a way your people guided those decisions, yes?” Mahanon nods. “But the Inquisition is more complicated. Corypheus, more complicated. You must forge a new path.” 

“With you?” 

“Should you wish it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter is a little short. I decided this was the best place to end it. Next chapter is longer than average, so look forward to that! 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

When Solas retires to his quarters, Dorian is already there, pacing like an anxious animal. A man out of his depth. Solas frowns. “Ah- Dorian. I did not expect you so soon.”

But he should have known from the pacing that Dorian is in no place for pleasantries. The pacing halts and for a moment he is quiet, mouth working as if unsure of what words to use. And isn't that a first. "I’m coming to you first, because I respect you, and because I trust you have the Inquisitor's best interests at heart."

Not a good start.

"What is this about, Dorian?'

Dorian stands straight like a man in court, wearing masks.

He has his staff.

“Dorian?”

"Are you a blood mage?”

_“Excuse me?”_

“I like you, Solas, so _please_ don’t make me ask more than once.”

“I am a _Dreamer_ _!_ What use would I have for blood magic? _”_

Dorian grabs him by the wrist. Quicker than Solas expected. Underestimated.

 _“Fenedhis lasa_ _, let go of me.”_

“I will _not,_ until you explain this,” Dorian hisses, and with his other hand pulls the bandage from his wrist.

And drops his arm at once. “That doesn’t look- Solas, you look like you were mauled by a _wild animal.”_

The fury in his gaze freezes to confusion, concern.

“Hardly.” Solas clutches his wrist as if protecting something vulnerable.

And perhaps he is.

For this is so clearly _not blood magic_ and that, that is _worse._ Blood magic is an explanation. Blood magic makes sense. And to a Tevinter mage, perhaps even _forgivable._

But this.

This.

“Are you- Solas, are you well?”

“Perfectly,” he says plainly, offers Dorian nothing but annoyance. As if this is such a small thing that to worry is entirely absurd. He kept Mahanon’s secret after Haven. Healed him on his own to keep the shem from learning-

But Dorian is clever and Dorian is a man willing to fight his own people and Dorian is dangerous.

“It is late. Are you finished?”

Dorian frowns. Something in his face seems to sharpen and suddenly it is almost as if Solas is back in Andruil’s court, misdirecting-

But he is so out of practice.

“I suppose I am,” Dorian says at length, in a tone that says he very much is not. “Enjoy your night in the Fade. Or whatever else it is you _somniari_ do.”

 

* * *

 

 

Even in Skyhold, Solas sleeps fitfully. The Veil holds strongest here: this place where he first held back the sky. And though slipping through the Veil will always be a simple task for him, and though he walks the old paths with ease- sometimes, he is tired. And on the eave of their departure to the Plains torn by civil war, he dreams of another time, and yet more war.

Her court is always full. Full of people. Full of color. Full of intrigue and a lingering scent of death-

Andruil sits just above the crowd, in what would be a throne for any other Evanuris but Andruil wields it as her bow. She aims it at Ghilan'nain.

Ghilan'nain holds the end of a lashed elf. She stands with her hands clasped firm behind her back, head high, authority echoed by every careful gesture. One would never know she had just joined their ranks. She took to the Evanuris like a dragon to the sky: fiercely, because it was her nature. But what came before her rise to power still remains in the way Andruil looks down at Ghilhan’nain from her throne. Adoring. Hungry.

The lashed elf shakes. Golden thread binds his wrists together, his ankles, glows in a mimicry of warmth, but Solas knows how cold that magic truly is: a spell that binds and steals your strength but does not kill. He developed it as a kindness, for prisoners of war, so the streets would not run so red. It was never meant for this.

“You left your scraps on the floor.” She releases the elf. He falls to his knees, head tilted up as if unwilling to let Ghilan'nain leave his sight. Arrows cut across his pale face and stretch down to his neck. Raw skin interrupts the design, punctures barely healed.

The hall quiets. Marked faces watch Andruil, while the clean-faced elves watch Ghilan'nain. The highest ranked among them, though, watch the elf collapsed on the floor, sharp-eyed, open-mouthed, fangs bared.

Solas circles the room.

Andruil speaks.

“Why do you have one of my slaves bound like your animals?” Unlike the rest of her kin, Andruil spares no glance to the elf bound in gold. Wisely.

Ghilan'nain snaps her fingers. A flash of white light strikes the bound elf in his back. He falls forward, shaking, still alive.

“You-” Andruil rises from her throne.

In the distraction, Solas steps behind one of the few whose gaze watches the whole room. One of his agents. He whispers, “Get them to the Valley. Whenever you can.”

Acting now is ill-advised. They spent years constructing passages between his crossroads and this place. Using them in such large numbers would break secrecy.

But he knows Andruil, her temper, her possessive rage. He knows precious little of the halla-mother, but the fire of her jealousy has killed before. Prayers that Andruil hunt elsewhere have never been so loud.

“I’m picking up your mess.” A second bolt of light splits the air. “I assumed since you fed from a _slave,_ you intended to kill it.”

No sound from the downed elf.

Andruil is upon her, snarl louder than the lightning.

The room empties.

Ghilan'nain grins. From the beginning, her attempts at manipulation were so crude Solas hesitates to call it such at all. Far from defending her seat at the table, her position as favored prey, it appears to him as a lovers’ quarrel: a young woman lashing out in jealousy.  

A mural shatters on the far wall. Ghilan'nain’s back to the wall, Andruil fists her hair, yanks her head to the side, mouth open.

The last of the servants filter out. Whatever comes of this, Ghilhan’nain brought upon herself.

Solas shuts the doors behind him.

He wakes.

 

* * *

 

 

A stench of burning bodies assaults them long before they reach the plains. Solas is not unfamiliar with the smell. No mage who has seen battle has that luxury. But for the smell to reach them with so much distance yet to travel… they approach a massacre.

Leliana and Josephine briefed them before departure. Himself, Mahanon, Dorian and Varric. Dorian took the news in stride: “Same bullshit, different country.” Varric, for his part, knew the score long before a visit to the Plains ever crossed the Inquisition’s table. How unnervingly easy to forget Varric is a spymaster in his own regard. Mahanon looked sick and listened.

The further they traveled from Skyhold, the more his sickness seemed to cool and thicken so that now, a half day’s journey from the forward camp, his expression has settled into hardened amber. Mahanon slows his Hart so that they ride side by side. Solas braces himself, though for what he does not know.

“Do you know why shem call this area the Exalted Plains?” No greeting, no preamble, only his voice breaking through the amber, wielding shards like knives.

“Pointy…” Varric interrupts. “I know the Plains bring up some shit. But do you really want to think about this _now?_ We’re nearly there.” Sympathy and warning weave in a way Solas has only ever seen Varric manage. A hush falls over their party. They keep moving. The smell grows worse.

“Exalted,” Solas repeats. _Can you imagine? The Dalish, fighting humans. There’d be an Exalted March._ “Ah.”

 _“We_ call it the _Dirthavaren.”_

The stench of burnt flesh is overpowering now. It swallows Mahanon’s words, weighs them down. The stench makes a host of him, whispers in his ears where a hundred, a thousand burning bodies announce yet another plight of the elven people, yet more suffering the Dread Wolf caused, yet causes.

“A promise by whom?”

To his surprise, Dorian answers. “Andraste, supposedly, as thanks for the elves’ aid against Tevinter.”

“That’s the short of it,” Varric says, “I’m surprised you didn’t know. Thought this would be right up your alley of history.”

Well, he was preoccupied.

“It was meant to be the seat of our own nation-”

Dorian slows his horse so that Solas can almost catch the scowl on his face. “But humans get a little twitchy when elves consolidate too much power. Then some Southern Chantry sister comes up with the idea-- Oh, Exalted March! It worked with Tevinter, why not call the elves a bunch of godless heathens and take back all that land?”

“That’s- almost exactly as we tell it.” Mahanon looks at Dorian’s back with something like amazement. Relief, maybe.

“Yes, well, I’m just glad to tell a tale where it wasn’t Tevinter mucking everything up on its own, for once.”

Laughter greets their group for the first time since departure. Dorian rides ahead of them, so he cannot see the mirth in Mahanon’s gaze when he says, “Here I thought perhaps you cared about the Dalish.”

“Well, that too-!”

Varric joins the laughter. “And the ‘Vint sticks a foot in his mouth once again.”

Dorian groans, and the laughter renews.

“Sometimes,” Mahanon says quietly, words meant only for him, “I think- hope- this is all some kind of apology. Andraste made me her Herald to apologize for the Dirth." He clicks at his Hart and takes his place again at the head of their party, obscuring his face. "It would be nice if a god cared for the elves again."

 

* * *

 

 

By the time they reach the Dalish camp, Mahanon is undeniably at ease; his shoulders soften by degrees, as if relearning how it feels to be unburdened. He holds his weight evenly, not balanced on the balls of his feet to strike; all grace, familiar and sinuous steps, but without the urgency he's come to expect, the weighty presence so constant he hasn't realized Mahanon could be without. He seems at once younger and more himself, without facade. No need to settle into his skin when this is him standing comfortable and bare. The sun glares unrestrained across the Plains, but lands gently on Mahanon’s back, so that he need not wear the skin of a leader. He commands attention as he is.

“Aneth ara, brother.” Greets the elf in a Keeper’s robes. Solas is suddenly aware of their matching vallaslin. Arrows that cut across the face. Mar it.

“Aneth ara.”

“I am Keeper Hawen. I wish we could have met under better circumstances. But this shem war…” he trails off and glances to the edge of camp where Dorian lingers, unsure if he is welcome. Varric is chatting with the tradesman, though they are too far off for Solas to overhear. For his part, Solas lingers close to Mahanon. Perhaps he is unsure if he is welcome, too.

“I am Mahanon, of Clan Lavellan. Presently of the Inquisition, I suppose.”

The reverence in his tone when Mahanon speaks to the Keeper has his staff digging hard into the cracked dry earth.

“I am Solas, if there are to be introductions.” He hides half behind his staff. Unlike Mahanon, he must be the least like himself here among the Dalish. They have gotten so much wrong, but they know Fen’harel, and watch for him. The Keeper flicks his gaze between them. Solas allows it. Elves never know what to do with him, where he fits. Perhaps in whatever of The People yet lingers in these elves, they know him.

“He’s trustworthy.” Mahanon answers the unspoken question. Something of the Inquisitor yet lingers in that brief defense.

“If you insist.”

Mahanon squares his shoulders. A little more of the reverence bleeds away. “I do.”

Solas realizes that forcing Mahanon to defend him to his own people is hardly fair, especially when his own clan is so far away, and this is the closest he may ever get to home. And seeing Mahanon relaxed, relaxed for the first time since

_one flicker of afterglow before Solas snuffed the flame--_

He’d like to see Mahanon relax again.

“Please. I am a guest among you. If my presence offends--” he can watch from the outskirts like Dorian is doing now.

Mahanon blinks at him, a sly grin twisting the arrows into graceful curves. “Listening to a Keeper, Solas? The world truly is ending.”

“Unfortunately,” Hawen says, “I do not trust either of you.”

Mahanon flinches; armor shed too quickly, heart on his sleeve.

“You are of the People, but your Inquisition is human. We stand on the remnants of why we cannot trust shem’len promises so easily.”

Ah, of course. Mahanon has shown such wisdom that Solas forgot the warmth of a Dalish welcome. He shifts closer to Mahanon, makes his presence felt.

“But we share the same vallaslin, do we not?”

Solas and Hawen freeze at once. He shifts closer still, asks, “Mahanon?”

But Mahanon remains fixed on the Keeper. The air weighs heavy with meaning; the fade ripples, responds to a feeling that does not quite show on Hawen’s face. The Keeper flicks his gaze between them again. His caution festers to distrust.

“You wish to discuss this in the presence of a flat-ear?”

 _“He’s_ _trustworthy.”_ Mahanon repeats, in elvhen now; he layers it with meaning, holds the Keeper’s gaze. The way he says _trust,_ in the old tongue, it-- he-- _“Is ma halani.”_ He helps me.

Hawen yanks Mahanon in by his arm. _“How many of the Inquisition know?”_

 _That’s enough._ Solas casually digs into the Fade and _twists,_ plucks at the strings connecting Hawen to his magic hard enough to demand his attention, and cause no small amount of discomfort. He smile, the quiet apostate, no more. _Control yourself._ Solas takes a breath.

 _“Unhand the Inquisitor, if you please.”_ He dismisses his spell with a blink; when he opens his eyes again, Hawen stands straight, arms behind his back. The stance speaks authority, but his stunned silence says far more. It’s satisfying in a way Solas elects to leave unexamined. He’s no place sticking himself in Dalish spats. They are below him. But Mahanon--

Well.

Solas clears his throat. _“Of the Inquisition, just I am aware of Mahanon’s condition.”_ This may be the most elvhen he’s spoken since joining the Inquisition; it comes smoothly, unaccented. It feels good to speak the old tongue again. The way Mahanon and the Keeper look at him feels even better. _“You’re naive to think you Dalish are the only keepers of such secrets. I know Andruil’s ilk. I know the greater risk lay in allowing the human’s Herald of Andraste to go hungry under so many watchful eyes.”_

 _“_ Solas _,”_ Mahanon hisses. Ah, and speaking of hunger: there it is now in his voice, the curl of his lips, proving his point. _“I would have managed.”_

_“You would have starved, da’len.”_

Hawen looks between them, frowning. “Da’len, is your clan not-?”

Mahanon shakes his head.

“I… see. This-- changes things. I believe this explains the eagerness I distrusted when you approached our camp.” He assesses Mahanon with considerably more warmth than before. “You’re welcome to visit with our clan for as long as we remain in the Dirth.”

A breath leaves Mahanon in a rush; he seems to sag, so much that Solas nearly reaches out to catch him.

“May I trouble you for one more favor hahren?”

Hawen shakes his head. “I would not even have you ask; I know you must be hungry. Come.” He gestures to a part of the camp carved off from the rest. A crude gate leads down into a root-formed depression in that cuts into the earth. An enormous stone Hart marks the cave, and the clan’s herd of halla mill blow. It’s obvious what Hawen is offering; the emotion it conjures in Solas, less clear.

 _And how fitting,_ he thinks. _To do this animal act where the animals lay_.

“Are you certain?” Mahanon asks.

“My clan can spare very little, but this I may manage on my own. My magic should help the sustenance hold longer.” He looks to Solas, and something of the warmth he showed Mahanon yet lingers in his gaze. “Solas,” he says, not flat-ear this time, “You must be quite a mage, to sustain him as you have.”

A compliment, but a dangerous one. He shakes his head. “There are supplements. Rams--”

Hawen makes a noise like he’s just said something so absurd it warrants no response.

“We’re doing what we can with what we have,” Mahanon says softly. Solas gets an impression that he and Hawen dance around a conversation he is not equipped to fully grasp.

It all bothers him more than he cares to acknowledge.

The truth is Solas has never known what it truly takes to sustain a vampire. Andruil is his only source of insight, but Mahanon is a child of hers in name alone; they are so far from each other as to be almost completely unrecognizable. Solas knows only that Andruil carved a path of death through her own people, and hunted for yet more blood after that. It was excessive. The Evanuris did not know the meaning of _restraint._

Mahanon functions so well, acts always with composure and does not complain of hunger, nor even _asks--_

But he asked the Keeper. Perhaps Mahanon simply does not wish to ask _him._

That bothers him, too.

They descend into the earth and leave Solas by the gate. He stands guard below the stone Hart, takes it upon himself to distract their companions’ wandering eyes. And listens.

Quiet voices that fade to silence; a gasp, easy to pluck from huffing halla, higher and almost a word, a command. _Garas, garan._ Come, come here. Awkward and accented as all Dalish elvhen is, and too full of breath to make out clearly, but he strains to listen nonetheless.

_And why does he care?_

Force of habit, he reasons. Distrust of elves that gather behind closed doors, the ingrained urge to know all that passes in his presence and beyond, so that the information may be put to use, made to serve his purpose.

But this is not plots whispered in the dark. This is Mahanon fulfilling a need, nothing more.

Solas looks to the horizon and waits.

 

* * *

 

 

The demons of Var Bellanaris fight without intent; old spirits twisted and confused by the rifts and lost without the wards so carefully put in place, now broken.

“Solas!” Dorian’s shout cuts above a shrieking Terror, but far away, too far away to matter and-

Solas twists, half a barrier on his lips and mana waning, _still so weak from waking._ Not enough to stop the terror’s claw, _not enough--_

It collapses on top of him, dagger sticking from his neck, ichor slick down his tunic, the hand Mahanon offers to help him up. Evening light catches on his sweat, the demon blood. He glimmers, covered in gore and _beautiful_.

“Ma serannas,” he breathes, and takes his hand.

 

The way back to camp is quiet.

He will never grow used to the sight of elven graves. Accolades to Falon’din are misguided enough, certainly, but the whole thought of it is wrong. An _elven_ cemetery. They are not _meant_ to die. They sleep. They walk the Fade and wake wiser for it.

These are not the elves Solas knew. Traveling with Mahanon, he so often he forgets.

“You seem perturbed.” Dorian, for his part, has spent their walk back to Hawen’s clan in a constant swivel between admiring the scenery and admiring Mahanon’s backside. Solas watches, too, still stuck on the battle: Mahanon quick and wild, covered in ichor and for all the world looking like a warrior straight from Arlathan.

He’s never fought like that before.

He’s never been so full of life.

Hawen.

Dalish elder with his worn face and paltry magic incomparable to Solas’ own, old man and quickened elf, mortal like their kind should not be and surely Mahanon has more in common with mortality than not, but still it haunts him. Mahanon bowed his head, called him _hahren._ Left punctures on his neck and emerged looking--

Solas clears his throat. “Pardon, Dorian?”

“You’ve been quiet since the cemetery-”

Mahanon hums, his step light. “Var Bellanaris. Solas prefers to judge the Dalish from afar. Perhaps we got too close?”

Dorian snorts. “So he’s brooding, then.”

 _“Brood_ implies unnecessary melancholy. Sorrow for the disturbed dead hardly qualifies.” They should not even be dead at all.

“ _So,_ Pointy,” Varric interrupts, “You pulled quite a trick with that Terror. Since when can you move that fast?”

Since Hawen, Solas supposes.

“Try and keep up,” Mahanon says, nearly sing-song, and it is lovely, until Solas recalls the reason for his lift in mood, and it all goes sour.

“I’d be lucky to keep up with the self-trained apostate, at this point,” says Dorian. “Those are Tevinter techniques, but you execute them better than all the Atlus back home.”

Solas shrugs. “I cannot be blamed if Tevinter stole half its technique from the ancient elves.” He intended to meet levity with levity, to put Hawen and petty jealousy and the Dread Wolf’s mistakes all from his mind, but their party goes quiet once more. He tries again. “If you’d like, I can give you pointers back at Skyhold. I promise not to spread that you take lessons from an elf. No one would believe it regardless.”

“Oh, yes. The apostate and the maleficar pariah sharing magic in secret. Josephine will just _love_ us.”

 

* * *

 

That evening, Mahanon joins him for his watch. He always does, and though he first thought it a restlessness born of hunger, he now suspects that Mahanon simply sleeps very little. And why should he? He is a vampire. Sleep bears no usefulness to him. It would be, to him, only a moment’s respite from consciousness.

Some nights he wakes to Mahanon keeping company with Dorian, Varric, Cassandra, an Inquisition soldier, whispering with whoever is awake when he sat with Solas on his watch just hours before. But tonight he seems more at ease. He does not bounce and rub his hands together; no chattering teeth, but a smile and head tilted toward the sky.

“I see you are not attempting to sit atop the fire tonight.”

Mahanon shrugs. “Warm night.”

“Inquisitor.”

A sigh.

“And I am well fed. Is that what you wished me to say?”

Solas isn’t sure what he wished.

“If you’d only _said_ something--”

“And have you give beyond your means?” Mahanon skirts around the fire so they sit side-by-side. “I know what I am doing.”

Their thighs touch. He is warm.

“I would have you keep me informed.”

“But for what purpose?” he hisses, voice low. When he speaks again, it is in elvhen. For security, he knows. But hearing the old tongue… “I know how much one can give before they harm themself. Why would I tell you I am hungry when there is nothing to be done? You do not need that weight on you. It is mine to bear.”

“I…” But there is nothing to say. One man can only bleed so much. And Hawen--

Solas hoped refusing to name the feeling would discourage it from laying roots, but jealousy still lingers. Should Mahanon ever seek out another, not knowing is best for all involved. And yet.

_Yet._

Mahanon takes his hand and squeezes, gaze so earnest Solas can scarcely bring himself to meet it.

“You sustain me. Let that be enough.”

His touch is very warm.

“I will try.”

Solas squeezes back once, then withdraws. Still Mahanon looks at him with that earnest gaze. More care than he deserves. When Solas speaks again, he returns to Common as if to acquiesce. Topic closed.

“So, earlier, what Varric said about how you struck down that Terror. Would you always fight that way?”

A shrug, half a smile. “If one my companions always fought so distracted, perhaps.” Then, quieter still, “Do you really care that our dead were disturbed?”

 _“Yes,”_ he says quietly, fiercely. “I care.” He may not appreciate the Dalish, their fumbling attempts at history, their vallaslin. But he is not a _monster._ He cares. Of course he cares.

“I- Good. That’s- I’m glad.”

And Solas wants, very badly, to kiss him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the late update! I wanted to add an additional scene to this chapter, so I kept delaying... but I've been really busy, and I didn't want to make y'all wait too long, so I'm posting now. You're not missing out on any important plot stuff. The scene was just gonna set up some seeds I have for a part 3. Maybe I'll add it in later - if I do, I'll be sure to let you all know. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy this late, semi-longer chapter. Thanks for reading and thank you for all the great comments! It feels so good to get such great feedback on such an underrated ship.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relevant elven translations in the endnotes

The Dirth is not a good place to dream. 

He is at Andruil’s court again, but in her murals she wears her own vallaslin, arrows cut across her face- his face- 

Beneath him: a broken elf tied in gold. Blood on his back. Solas feels more than tells his limbs to move and the  _ snap _ of ribs echoes terribly here, against the plaster and the glass. 

But the elf is on its back now. An elf in the same vallaslin wearing a Keeper’s robes and Hawen’s face. 

Above him: her throne. 

Above him: a man with brown skin and a warrior’s shoulders and arrows down his face- no, no,  _ no no no he is not her he will never be her he-  _

A scream rocks the fade. The murals shatter to green wisps and he is so  _ glad  _ to be rid of that dream until the wisps resolve themselves to new shapes: a summoning circle, a foreign rage, predators with rounded ears.

He's in the Dirth again, dreaming but with sharpened focus. Apostates surround him, their fear ripe enough to draw unkind spirits against the Veil, clawing to get through. But it’s not the unkind spirits they drag into reality- 

His friend, Wisdom, crying in the Void,  _ ma halani- _

 

* * *

 

 

Solas wakes, too late. By the time they reach the summoning circle,  Wisdom is-  already corrupt. The mages cower from the abomination they made of his oldest friend. Predators by another name. The wolf snaps under his skin, wants fire, demands recompense,  _blood-_

He _failed-_

And when he mourns he wears a wolf and runs. Halla scatter at his scent. Hooves on bloody dirt. Fleeing.

He does not think. Thinks not of Ghilan'nain--  _ hide tough between his teeth _ \-- not of Andruil--  _ bones break beneath his jaw-- _ and surely not his oldest friend broken by mortal men--  _ a mouthful of blood-- _

Each shred of meat he swallows rips wider a hole that’s been splitting since he woke-- wider for Wisdom’s absence-- splitting since before he woke-- since the evanuris took Mythal-- Mahanon. 

She was the best of them and he is the best of what is left but _ the world has taken so much from me how dare it take my oldest friend, I have so little left-- _

The wolf howls. 

After this he wanders. Four feet and a mouth full of teeth. So long since he last wore the shape of a god. He fits well into its skin. No staff to hide behind, no mask to fit a mouth that snarls, bites. This form is simple. Instinct. Hunt, eat, sleep, wander where he will. No room for anger, sorrow. A mile away a herd of halla keep watch while their youngest sleep. Their heartbeats lull him into peace.

He finds a quiet den and goes to sleep.

 

* * *

 

He wakes the following evening with the setting sun hot on his back and a scent of death in his nose. For all that the world is different, this never changes: Heat makes the dead stink, and wind carries far on the plains. 

Waking is hardest after wearing another shape. Skin constricts; a lingering sense that he should be larger. More, somehow. The Plains are made of dry yellows and deep browns, but appear even duller to him now. All hints of greenery turn grey in what lingers of a predator’s eyes, and the sky, a murky blue. But for what he’s lost in color he makes up for with sense of smell-- and the  _ smells--  _

A headache builds at the base of his neck. Solas stands on two legs and continues his walking, now for lack of purpose. The Plains are miserable: Death both fresh and old draws spirits to the veil. They press, thin, fray. Spirits draw demons. His awareness  _ (anger, despair) _ draw their attention. 

He keeps moving. 

The sun is well beyond the horizon by the time he wanders across signs of life: fires by a stream. Mournful woodwind music that clashes, fights, blends with quiet laughter and a steady scrape of fletching arrows. 

The Dalish camp. Solas stops. How had he wandered here? Even his waking mind so deep in the fade, feeling the spot where Wisdom once was, turning rough edges over and over until they grow smooth like a river’s pebble. The process is familiar to him, but no easier. 

He is of no mind to deal with Dalish. And besides, Mahanon is not with him.  _ Will you even return? _ He turns to go. 

“Solas?” 

The Keeper’s voice. He turns to look back at the camp and there he is, staff in hand and shadowed by the fires behind him. He must have sensed his presence. Perhaps in the Fade. Came to investigate, assess if there was danger… 

And there is, but not in the way Hawen thinks.

“Hawen,” he tries for a smile, but his mouth still feels smaller than it should be. Shorter. Not yet settled back into his skin.  _ Has he ever been, since Haven? _ “Good evening.” 

“Atish’an. You return.” 

Still so strange to hear his language, awkward yet familiar, on a Dalish tongue. 

_ And yet, on Mahanon’s tongue…  _

“Aneth ara.” It seems the only thing to say. 

“Are you on your own, Solas?”

“Ah-- yes. For the time being.”

Hawen tilts his head, and Solas cannot help but think of a halla-- 

_ (of his dream, blood down Hawen’s face and Mahanon in Andruil’s throne--)  _

“We are about to take our evening meal,” Hawen says at length. “You’re welcome to join.” 

Against his better judgement, Solas does. 

The encampment’s fires come slowly into focus, followed by the smells of roasting meat. Flatbread toasts below the meat to catch the dripping grease. It's a travelers meal, bread in lieu of utensils that take up too much precious space. 

(How did Mahanon eat, when he still lived? Did he catch the evening’s meals? Kill them, skin them, roast them? He wants to know these small things now. His living habits, his preferences.)

Despite the meal's simplicity, the meat is spiced, surprisingly sweet. He makes a noise of appreciation that earns a smile from Hawen. 

“Eat as you like. Our hunters are getting restless, stuck out here while we repair the aravels. We’ve enough meat for two winters now.” They sit side by side, apart from the group at large. Out of respect or ire, he cannot quite tell, but he does not mind the privacy. 

_ “Ma serannas.”  _

They continue eating in silence, but the night is far from quiet. Even now the Plains are alive: rabbits emerge from their boroughs; somewhere, an owl swoops to its prey; the craftsman tans hide and murmurs instruction to a younger elf. Was life in clan Lavellan as simple as this? 

Despite his invitation, Solas eats very little. An entire halla the night before, consumed in grief, in another form, but the hole it made still lingers- 

“What is your role in the Inquisition?” Hawen asks. 

Solas shrugs. “Research. I am a Dreamer _,_ and well-traveled. I uncover lost lore. Speak with spirits of Wisdom,” _no longer_ , “I share what I know to aid the Inquisition’s efforts.” 

“And the Inquisitor trusts you a great deal.” Spoken as an observation, but a question lingers in his voice. 

“It would seem. Although we argue often.” He smiles fondly. In his grief, their arguments feel only like evidence that he's formed connections in this time at all. 

“About?” 

“The Dalish.” 

“Hm.” 

It would have been wise not to answer quite so truthfully. But he is already here, breaking bread with the Dalish. How could their arguments possibly matter here, now?

“So, are you a flat-ear after all?” An earnest question: Are your ears still pointed, or have you thrown away what it means to be elvhen? 

“Ah-- no. I do not consider myself  _ human, _ if that is what you ask. The Inquisitor and I simply-- disagree. On many things. We also simply argue when he refuses to take his medicine.”

Hawen laughs- a true laugh that shakes his shoulders, that Solas cannot help but return. 

“He is a young one.” 

“Yes.” 

But then, they all are, to him.

“I’ve not had the opportunity to speak with many city elves in my time as Keeper, but, you give an impression of more than a city elf.” 

No. He’s as much in common with a city elf as he does the Dalish. But that is a winding path of conversation, one he is not willing to travel with a stranger. 

“May I ask you a question, Hawen?”

“As you wish.” 

“Perhaps I should--” he huffs. Takes a moment and arranges his thoughts. “What I know of vampires, I learned from spirits in the Fade. They cling to emotions that linger the strongest. Hunger, desire, fear. I know his kind only at their worst. But Mahanon, he is very far from that.”

“Ask your question,” Hawen says tightly. 

Solas takes a breath. Sets his jaw. His teeth feel as his own again. The skin fits. He asks, “How much does Mahanon require? In blood. I fear to ask directly would insult-- he lived off rams for several months. At the start of this.” 

“That could not have been pleasant for him.” 

_ It nearly broke him,  _ Solas thinks. Presses on. 

“When we cleared your  _ Var Bellanaris-- _ The way he  _ fought _ …” Mahanon soaked by demons’ blood, grinning, body one quick arrow as he cut through the air. Mahanon laughing triumphant as they walked back to camp. Mahanon, brilliant. 

Further back, Mahanon with his head tipped to the sky, yelling victory but pale, so  _ pale, _ green like the Breach he healed yet lingered inside him-- 

“How badly does he starve, on the blood of just one man?”

Hawen watches the fire, and for a moment Solas fears he pressed too hard. Dalish are stubborn, and he is an outsider. 

But then he speaks,“There’s no way to be certain.”

“An estimation.” 

He rubs at his neck, nervous habit of a much younger man. “I gave as much as I was able, and I sense still he held back. It takes a  _ clan _ to support a vampire. And he is a Lavellan, yes? Large clan, mages coming and going. A lot of blood, a lot of magic.” 

“A simple ‘very’ would have sufficed.”

Hawen looks at him sidelong. Embers catch on his vallaslin, each a quiet reminder that Andruil’s shadow follows him even now.

“It was not the answer you hoped for.” 

“We are both accustomed to hard truths, I imagine.” Solas sighs. “But yes. I had hoped he was not suffering in silence.”

“Vampires are stubborn. That he accepts your help at all, he trusts you a  _ great _ deal.” 

Stubborn, indeed. Andruil kept her land locked tight. Her court, tighter still. In the decades that followed he learned only of her bloodlust. That she doted on her lieutenants like a mother to children. And that slaves they took to bed rarely left it again. Hawen has told him more in the course of a meal than Solas learned of vampires with an entire network of spies in Arlathan.

The fire dwindles. 

“Keeper Hawen.” 

“You use my title now?” 

“I wish to ask you one more favor.” 

“What more would you learn from me?” 

“Ah- no.”  _ I doubt you have much to teach me, _ but then, that is not as true as Solas once believed. “May I teach you a dance?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ma halani: Help me  
> Atish'an: Shortening of the Dalish greeting _Andaran atish'an,_ Enter this place in peace  
> Ma serannas: my thanks


	8. Chapter 8

It feels like an age since he last returned to Skyhold. So much has happened. So much lost. Yet when he returns to his place in the library, all is as he left it: His frescos, half-finished on the walls; pages of cobbled notes, scribbled in elvhen, half-formed ciphers and personal shorthand. A cup of tea, still warm-

Tea?

“You’re back.” Dorian steps into the rotunda carrying an armful of books and bags beneath his eyes.

“Yes.”

Dorian attempts something that might have been a smile, on a less tired man. “The Iron Bull owes me ten sovereigns.”

“And you bet on my return?”

“Varric starts bets when he worries.” He shrugs and sets down the stack of books. “Are you-”

Dorian reaches a hand to his shoulder.

Solas finches.

His hand hangs in the space between them.

“No. But I will be. In time.” There was a time when elves mourned for centuries. They felt all things deeply, and had no need to rush their feelings.

Solas no longer has the time for that luxury.

"Well, I'm glad to have you back.” For a moment, it is as if the airs Dorian dons by day have melted off into the night. A rare show of earnest care, a quality of emotion he’s never come to expect, from a human. "I'm afraid I'm no good at mourning. Piss poor at it. But I’ve gotten quite good at drinking since Felix’s-” he clears his throat. “So if you'd like some company drinking the piss these Southerners calls ale, you only need to ask."

"Unlikely I will take you up on the offer, but- I appreciate the gesture."

"Good," Dorian nods once, then scoops his books back up into his arms. "I don't have many friends in the South. I'd like to count you among them."  

And speaking of.

"How is the Inquisitor?"

"On his way to see me, as a matter of fact." Dorian gestures with his stack of tomes. "Had me digging up books on spirits like I'm his personal librarian. Honestly." Then, softer again, more genuine. "You should find him before you retire. He worried."

Solas doesn't know if he's ready for that yet. Equally unsure if he has a choice. "I'll take it into consideration," he says softly, and takes his leave.

But he does not go far. The grand hall is empty at first glance, but Mahanon has his way with shadow. He pushes himself from the wall and stands before him. Not quite a challenge, too soft for that, but Mahanon blocks his path with purpose.

"Were you there long?"

"I heard you two talking." Of course he had. A vampire's hearing. Mahanon makes so little show of his abilities that, even painfully, keenly aware of his condition, Solas somehow nearly forgets he has them at all. Always so focused on the blood. How much Mahanon has. How much he needs. Marvels at his decorum, his restraint.

Silence stretches on between them. Dark even in the daytime, the main hall feels now like a pool of darkness, Mahanon's eyes but one fixed point.

"Thank you."

"What for?"

"Coming back."

Solas’ laughter echoes and bounces back warped, like whispers from across the veil, a mimicry of mirth. He shakes his head. "I ran away. Like a child." He tries to keep his tone plain, but disdain seeps in regardless. Puss from a festered wound. "I left you without," he pauses. It is late. Few souls awake. But he can hardly speak of blood so openly.

Mahanon interrupts with a hand on his shoulder, warmth Solas does not flinch from.

"You left to grieve." A firm squeeze, assurance, then retreat. "Next time you have to mourn, you don't need to be alone."

 _Rough hide aches in his jaw. Blood in the back of his throat. Four legs and a mouth full of teeth._ He's beginning to realize solitude is no good for him. "I... would enjoy your company now. If you are able."

 

* * *

 

 

The Inquisitor’s quarters are almost as Solas remembers: Empty and barely lived in. The desk is stacked with papers and books, but his bed is made, the wardrobe all but empty. Mahanon has always seemed an austere man, unaccustomed to luxury, and further, not the kind of man who would enjoy it. A lounge chair Solas does not recall seeing before is situated before the fire with more books stacked around it, the room's only clear sign of life. Mahanon gravitates immediately to the fireplace, and sets to building a fire.

"Cold?"

He strikes flint onto tinder, blows to coax smoke into fire. So focused on his task is Mahanon, Solas assumes he would not receive an answer. But once the flame takes hold, he shrugs and replaces his flint atop the mantel.

"You know I always am.”

"Not always."

Mahanon situates himself on the longue, mindful of the books littering his floor. Books left open to chapters headed, _"Death in the Fade" "On Personality of Spirit"_ and more obscure texts with translations sticking from their pages. Solas recognizes Dorian's handwriting. It aches to look at, as much as it comforts: evidence that they cared, do care, for the murder of a spirit they never even knew. For his sake. Solas turns his gaze to the fire slowly coming to life, and Mahanon beckons him to sit.

So he sits. Close enough that their thighs touch. Mahanon is not as warm as he had been that night on the Plains, in the Dirth, at camp by the fire. Not as fresh with blood. But still, he is warm and for what feels like an hour, and no time at all, they watch the fire in silence.

"Where did you go?" Mahanon asks at length. His voice slips into the silence like it was born there, like he is made to fill the spaces death leaves behind. Solas wants, very badly, to hide himself in Mahanon's silence. Let it blanket him like a dreamless sleep, and rest. Just rest. He is so tired.

 _I changed my form and killed in anger._ Blood in the back of his throat. Hole in his chest. _I spent my nights in a predator's skin. Perhaps you can relate._ But Mahanon has never been the predator between them. 

“I found a quiet place and went to sleep.” It is still the truth, if not all of it. “I visited the place in the Fade where my friend used to be. It's empty." He shuts his eyes. "I dreamed the March that stole the Dirth." More burning flesh. More mortals where there should be only the elvhen, unchanging. At times it seems all this world has to offer is death. "I am so sorry for your people."

But then: Mahanon. He brushes their fingers together, squeezes gently as if to say, _I am here._ And the world seems suddenly less full of death. "Our people."

"Yes,” he says softly, “Our people.”

Mahanon nudges a book closed with his foot. "If your friend reformed..."

"It would likely not remember me." Energy in the Void may resolve itself into another form. It may even have features of the old one. But it would still be different. "Perhaps what grows there will be better than what was."

"You can still mourn for what was lost, and take what is new. We Dalish are quite good at that, you know."

"I've done more than my fair share of mourning for what is lost." He turns Mahanon's hand over in his and traces the stripe where the anchor would be.

"Solas?"

He releases Mahanon's hand, places his own on Mahanon's thigh instead. Warm.

"But you are here now. And so am I."

They kiss.

A brush of lips. Mahanon tilts his head, makes space for Solas to lead, to cup him by the cheek and guide. Even with his eyes shut he can trace the lines of his vallaslin. In this moment they do not bother him; he's so much more than his vallaslin, than a hungry child of Andruil. New. Dalish. Better.

He traces the shape of Mahanon's lip with his tongue. Guides his head, tilts it further to deepen--

Mahanon leans away. A scant breath of space, the air still warm between them, but distance is distance and Mahanon looks at him like-- he's not sure. Looks at him. He wants very badly to close the distance. Chase away the look. Lick his way back into Mahanon's faint warmth and stay. If he tried, held Mahanon tight by the back of his neck, he's certain Mahanon would let it happen.

But that would hardly be fair.

"Are you certain?"  Mahanon asks.

Solas looks away, to the fire. _Just the blood would be kinder._

"No." Mahanon's thigh tenses beneath his hand, a half breath from leaning further, more distance. Solas squeezes, tells him _stay_. "I am certain of so little, since knowing you. I thought the Dalish children. I thought vampires selfish and slave to their desire. Yet you are wise beyond expectation. You are the most selfless man I have ever known."

"Solas-" Mahanon chokes, smile in his voice but still he does not glance from the fire. If he looks at Mahanon now, he is certain he would choke too, his throat tight from holding every death within it.

"But I am certain you are here," he turns fully, angles all of himself toward Mahanon and his momentary warmth. "And I am certain I do not wish to be alone."

Mahanon touches his cheek in turn. He shudders, tilts into it.

They kiss again. Mahanon compliant and- a palm on his chest whenever the pace grows. Keeps him slow. Grounded.

 _"Please,"_ he hisses. Leans in further, knee between them for leverage. Leans until Mahanon is nearly flat beneath him, hands clinging to his shoulders as much as they keep him at bay. "Please."

“You're still grieving.”

Solas makes a noise in the back of his throat and turns his attention from Mahanon’s lips to his neck and _bites._ Mahanon jerks. Hips into hip. He’s hard. Wants this. So why won’t Mahanon _let him-_

“Last time we-” Mahanon takes a staggering breath, starts again, “You regretted- and I-” Solas feels him swallow against his teeth. _“If you change your mind again it will kill me.”_ It comes out in a terrible rush.

Solas wants to bite again. Cut those words to tiny pieces and swallow. If they rip his chest wider then so be it. He _wants._

But instead he pulls away. Extracts himself from Mahanon’s neck, his hips from Mahanon’s hips, and now it is Mahanon’s turn to whisper. _“Please.”_

“Oh, Mahanon…” he strokes a hand down his chest. Does not linger or wander. Just a touch, assurance. You are here. I am here. This is real.

“I mourn. I’m an elf. When we mourn, we mourn for eons.”

Mahanon shuts his eyes, shoulders shuddering and tense. _Oh, no._ Solas strokes up his cheek, to his brow, strokes until the creases fade and he opens his eyes again. Solas holds his gaze, takes his own shuddering breath and says. “But I don’t grieve for _you._ I _want_ you.” He thought he could deny himself this. Avoid entanglement. But he’s quite certain it would kill him, the both of them. “And I have wanted you since Haven.”

“Okay,” Mahanon whispers as Solas dips down again, finds his lips and kisses him, with certainty this time. Lets it linger. “Okay. Then have me.”

“Here?” He smiles against his lips.

“Maybe on the bed,” and yet he pulls Solas close, kisses the side of his neck still smiling. “The fire is nice. But you’re warm enough.”

They both rise sure-footed, but Solas pauses anyway to watch Mahanon cross the room. Quiet even now. Predator’s grace, or a halla’s. He’s never been a predator, never will be.

“Undress.”

“Ah,” Mahanon sits on the edge of his bed and smiles. Pulls the laces from his shirt. “Is that how it’s going to be again?”

“You told me you were not displeased.”

“I wasn’t.” He pulls his tunic over his head and lets it fall to the floor. “I’m not. But I- want it to be simple, this time.” He curls his finger for Solas to come closer. Grins when he does. “And I wouldn’t mind actually seeing you naked.”

“We’ll see.”

They kiss again. He could kiss Mahanon for hours. There was precious little of it, their first time. He kissed only to control. To keep Mahanon under his thumb and ward off the dangerous thoughts, realizations, questions like _how do you know so much of vampires?_ But this is different. Their lips glide together smoothly, and when he catches Mahanon by the wrist it is only out of second nature. No intent beyond the kiss. It is so

Simple.

Mahanon’s fingers play down the cord of his necklace, trace the shape of a wolf's jaw against his chest only to find his way back along the cord. He comes to rest at the lacing on his tunic and there they remain. It takes a long kiss, Mahanon's fingers hovering at his chest, for Solas to understand the quiet question, to remember one need ask for this at all. He rests his hand atop Mahanon's and without a word they pull the lacing free. When he finally pulls the shirt from his head, Mahanon has arranged himself against the pillows, stretched like an offering, eyes half-lidded and gold by the fire.

And it is almost too much for him to bear.

He kisses the sight as if that might somehow make it easier to handle. Open-mouthed on the side of his jaw, sucks a bruise into the sweet hollow of his neck where chest and clavicle meet. Makes a path down his chest, scrapes his teeth across his abdomen to feel the way muscle refuses to give. Mahanon gasps, twitches, does not attempt to roll away. It's a trend, with him. Remaining where pain can reach him most.

“I can feel you smiling, Solas.”

“I am enjoying myself, yes.”

He palms Mahanon through his pants.

 _“Fenedhis.”_ He lifts his hips from the bed only to fall back when Solas refuses to relent.

“And you seem to be enjoying yourself as well.”

Mahanon squirms. “Ass.”

“I can stop if you wish.”

He kisses the spot above Mahanon’s pants and Mahanon, unsurprisingly, obediently, goes quiet. So Solas kisses lower, open mouthed where Mahanon is hardest, warmest, most alive.

And he _keens._

“Patience, da’len.”

“Just take them all the way off this time.”

“That, I think I can oblige.”

And he does.

Mahanon spreads his legs like an invitation, come lay with me, come remember what it’s like to live. Solas kneels between them, cups each leg beneath the knee and lets his touch wander higher. Pushes his legs open wider. Keeps pushing, pushes just to see how far he’ll go, until Mahanon is bent nearly in half and achingly, beautifully hard.

It takes his breath away. “You are- _incredible.”_

“Please touch me.”

So Solas takes him in his mouth, anticipates the way Mahanon’s hips lift instantly from the bed. He presses his palm hard into his abdomen, demands without words that he _be still._ He presses until Mahanon obeys, falls back flat against the bed.

“Will you be still?”

 _“Yes. Please._ Just-” he cuts into a whine.

“Good.”

He lowers his head once more. Slowly now, he leaves time for Mahanon to adjust, catch his breath. As beautiful as he is writhing off the bed, it would be disappointing to end so prematurely.

Although he is sure the sight would be quite beautiful.

Mahanon is so- unlike himself, here, in bed. As head of the Inquisition he wears the skin of a leader. Sure of himself and his decisions and always kept so tight, twisted and tense so that nothing of what he is, who he is, escapes. But here- _here_ . Here he quietly goes to pieces. Wraps his legs around Solas’ neck and begs, _please, please, please._ There is no word for it beyond submission: He wants to serve. Please. Protect.

Nails dig into his scalp. “Solas, _Solas, I-_ I-”

At once Solas lifts his head and squeezes at the base of Mahanon’s cock.

And still Mahanon lifts off the bed. _“Fuck you!”_ The aborted orgasm shakes through him. Solas keeps the pressure tight even as Mahanon squeezes his eyes shut against it, as his mouth falls open and soundless, breathless.

“Breathe, Mahanon.”

Slowly, he settles. His breath still comes in sharp bursts that don’t seem to satisfy his need for air. But he opens his eyes, and his gaze is absolutely clear.

“Are you well?”

Mahanon nods.

“Speak it. Please.”

He nods again, says. “I’m- good. Good.”

Solas eases his grip and Mahanon seems to melt into the bed; his breath finally comes back long and full. It is the most relaxed he’s been since- since their first time, in the cabin, what feels like an age ago, and feels like no time at all.

“I will.”

“Hm?”

“Fuck you.”

Mahanon licks his lips. Laughs. “In the wardrobe. Top drawer.”

Solas parts from the bed with a kiss to Mahanon’s chest and sheds his leggings on his way, tries not to shudder at the wash of air on his skin. Not cold, but cooler than it is flush against Mahanon. He retrieves a small bottle, half-full with oil. Not a tincture borrowed for another purpose, but proper slick, made for this.

“Anticipated company?” he places the bottle atop the comforter and settles back into bed, over Mahanon, eyebrow raised with interest.

Disheveled against the pillows, Mahanon attempts a shrug, licks his lips again. “You know I sleep very little.”

As if that explains things. Solas supposes it does. Laughs. “I did wonder what you accomplished in those extra hours.”  

He wastes no time uncorking the bottle and slicking his fingers, heedless of the mess it makes of the blankets. Heedless of everything but Mahanon. Mahanon, watching him. Mahanon, biting his lips in anticipation, waiting for him.

There is something to be said for this. Simplicity. Mahanon on his back, Mahanon with legs spread open. Mahanon watching him, rather than on his stomach, neck pressed down into the pillows because Solas willed it. This is something more. Something intimate. Makes his chest ache. (A hole mending shut.)

He touches the inside of Mahanon’s thigh, fingers shaking. It frightens him.

“Solas?”

But the sound of his name brings the room back to focus. Back to this moment. “Yes?”

Mahanon holds his gaze as he hooks his hands beneath his thighs and pulls. He bends himself without  needing to be asked, an invitation so clear he can scarcely stand to look.

But he does look. He accepts.

He covers Mahanon’s left hand with his own, and slips the other to his entrance, pushes in, meets no resistance. His breath hitches, a hiccup that might be _yes,_ but too choked for certainty. His head falls back into the pillow. He bares his neck, a dark bruise blossoming on its side. Solas crooks his fingers.

“Yes!”

Mahanon wraps tight around his waist. He brings his arm to his mouth, cries into his skin and pushes back on Solas’ fingers in one smooth, impossible, beautiful movement.

“Creators, yes, your fingers- please-”

Solas applies steady pressure, unrelenting, presses down until only Mahanon’s shoulders remain on the bed, the rest of him arced up, into him, gasping. He moves them in as much a circular motion as the tightness allows. Mahanon cries _please._

And it is almost like that time after Haven. Mahanon beside himself yet _himself,_ begging and beautiful in his own wild way-

The comparison spurs a slow drag of his fingers. Mahanon keens as he drags them away, a keen that crescendos until-

He arches as far as his body allows and comes.

Solas holds Mahanon by the thigh, eases him down onto the bed. Says, “You-” but has no words to finish.

Sweat dampens Mahanon’s forehead, a sheen that turns his skin from warm brown to near golden by the firelight. Pale honey across his abdomen where spend makes a mess of him. And he is still hard.

“Mahanon,” he breathes, high on the image of Mahanon gone tight only to bare himself and release.

“I was- so close- your _mouth_ -” He tries to speak between harsh breaths, hoarse, low, slightly slurred from just how loose-limbed he’s become. “Give- just a moment.” He hums softly, almost a moan. Not a weak sound by any means, but- small. Tender.

Solas knew he brought Mahanon staggering once to the edge. He pulled him back and intended to keep him there, suspended, draw the moment out as long as he could manage. Even here control leaks from him. The instinct to guide where he felt best. But this- the unexpected burst-

“Take whatever time you need.”

He needs a moment, too.

After some time, Mahanon opens his eyes again. He says, “Okay.” He says, “I’m ready.”

“For?”

_“Solas.”_

“Say it.”

 _“Please_ , hahren, please-”

Even if that title twists arousal so tight it aches-

“Mahanon.”

“I want you to _fuck me.”_

Solas smiles. “Ma nuvenin.”

He is still loose-limbed, so Solas does the maneuvering for them. He takes Mahanon’s thigh and lifts it onto his shoulder. The other goes naturally around his waist, linking them.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like you are dragging this out on purpose.”

“Hm, perhaps,” he hums. “You are quite the sight.”

But he has waited long enough. Mahanon offers no resistance, just a hitch of his breath. The leg around his waist falls wider as Solas leans in and _keeps going,_ gives until they are pressed chest to chest, panting.

“Fuck,” Mahanon says eloquently. Possibly the least eloquent he’s ever been.

_And I brought him there._

The _enormity_ of it all catches in his throat and it’s all he can do to remain still and feel Mahanon tight around him, his thigh linking them together and he can scarcely _breathe-_

“Solas. Move.”

“Patience.”

But even Solas is tired of waiting. So he moves.

There’s precious little room to work with, hips flush to hips so instead he rolls forward. Rocks into him until he hits a stride and _groans._ Growls maybe. What does that matter, when Mahanon grinds onto every thrust, chasing his own pleasure? And doesn’t he deserve it? _Mahanon the Dalish from his clan, Mahanon the Inquisitor, Mahanon who keeps himself twisted so tight-_ He deserves it, deserves this.

Solas gets a hand between them and strokes. No elegance to the gesture: a utilitarian flick of his wrist that has him moaning into his arm all the same.

Solas grabs that arm without thinking. Presses it hard above Mahanon’s head and leaves it. Trusts Mahanon to keep it there, and he does, of course he does, but when Solas pulls his hand away

it comes back bloody.

And what to do with that.

He draws a path down the length of his arm, across his cheek, paints his lips with his own blood. They glisten black in the dim light, so _beautiful._

Of course Mahanon bites now. He is still a vampire, driven by desire in his own way, and Solas knows how desire has its way of twisting and amalgamating until all desire churns and aches the same. “Must you-?”

Mahanon turns his head and licks, so quick that Solas only just catches sight of his nimble tongue before Mahanon sucks the bloody fingers into his mouth. Solas holds his breath for fangs, but Mahanon only moans. There’s only warm velvet on his fingertips, warmth that slips hotter to his gut as Mahanon’s eyes slip slowly shut.

“You can.”

“Mm?” A hum so soft that it is felt more than heard.

“Draw my blood. Now. It is okay.” More than okay he is fairly sure he _wants-_ “You have permission-” Mahanon’s leg tightens.

“You do not have to-”

“You seemed to enjoy it.”

At this Mahanon laughs. “I recall that so did-”

Solas finds a fang and _presses._

“ _Mm_ \--!”

Mahanon is _so tight-_

And it is Mahanon’s turn to maneuver him now. Hold him by the wrist- _not a wolf’s jaw but something tender-_ find a vein- _more care than Solas deserves-_ he bites and-

The next moments come to him in broken pieces: A heat that washes through him, starts at his wrist and shivers up his arm and coils tight around him and for a moment everything goes perfectly, blissfully dark, a sweet chord ringing in his ears.

Mahanon lifts his leg from Solas shoulder. The loss sharpens his awareness, if only barely. He eases from Mahanon and savors his one last gasp.

“Solas.”

Within their shared stillness, the sound of his name rings loud.

Solas lays flat on his back and breathes.

“Mahanon.” Just his name. There are no other words he could say.

“Would you-”

“I am.”

He will not make Mahanon say the word. (Does not think he could bear to hear him ask, _Would you stay?)_

They breathe easier.

Mahanon rests an arm over his abdomen and tangles their legs together, as if to ask again, _please stay._ He rests his head into Solas’ shoulder. Breath brushes across his ear with all the softness of a lover.

And that is what pulls it from him.

“Ma vhenan.”

They sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this fic is almost over! It's occupied all my daydreaming for, heck, months now. It's still occupying them tbh. So seriously, y'all, thanks for reading!
> 
> Fenedhis: An elvhen expletive. Along the lines of _fuck_  
>  Ma nuvenin: As you say  
> Ma vhenan: my heart. Elvhen term of endearment


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the final chapter. Enjoy

Solas wakes with his bed empty. A warm breeze drifts through his room and for a moment Solas allows himself to linger,  _ relax _ . When at last he opens his eyes to find the balcony doors thrown open and for a moment that sight alone consumes his vision: enormous glass panes that stretch higher than it seems they should, that shimmer with the midday sun. 

He rises, floor warm beneath his feet. The yellow wood compliments the gold threading through his robes and for a brief moment that, too, consumes his vision. 

Then he is on the balcony. It is empty. But the view: 

An immense green valley stretches on below him. Glass spires cut into the sky, and echo the sun so loudly that the brightness burns his eyes. 

It is Arlathan. 

Not the city proper, but a piece, the part carved out by Fen’harel. It is his Valley, as it was. 

It is only a dream. 

The realization knocks into him with all the force that it always does: A terrible, aching, sweet nostalgia that has him stumbling back against the glass. He tilts his head to the sky and lets the sun burn him. 

But instead of sun: A shadow. 

The owl again. Again Solas cannot help but follow.  Like a man caught prisoner within himself, he once more stands at the end of her hall- 

Mahanon lands as he is, the owl shed for bare skin. His vallaslin coil around him, grow from his face down his body like hungry vines, like claiming teeth, a wolf's jaw- 

Andruil leaps toward them. 

Solas snarls- 

And wakes. He’s long since learned to wake quietly- any soldier, any rebel, any god knows to wake quietly. But it is as if his mind lurches back into his body and though quiet as a wisp he still wakes gasping- 

"Solas." He feels more than hears his name said softly into his skin. "You're awake." 

His skin does not quite  _ fit.  _ The bed too large, his body too small, smooth skin and dull teeth where there should be fur and fang. 

_ A green valley-  _

_ Empty streets of Arlathan-  _

_ And the hare- _

"Yes." 

Pale light seeps in from the windows, but only enough to make out shapes, enough to watch Mahanon's figure as he rests himself against the headboard. "It's early." Mahanon strokes his shoulder idly, so very much like a lover. "Go back to sleep." 

"But you are awake." Speaking helps shake the dream from his mind.

"I don't need sleep," he smiles down at him. "Unlike someone." 

Solas tries to laugh in kind, but the noise shudders and dies as soon it meets the air. "One night will not harm me." 

Mahanon shrugs. So Solas takes that as invitation to rest his head against his thigh - cool but not quite cold, yet, not yet - and closes his eyes. 

Behind his eyelids is Arlathan. Behind his eyelids is a throne and a hare. 

Speaking helps. Solas tries again. "Mahanon." 

And something of the dream must linger in his tone, for Mahanon sits up straighter. Solas does the same. "What is it?" 

"I- should something happen- happen to me--" _ Should something happen to me I need to know- Need to know she won't-  _

_ That she won't steal your mind.  _

“Please, not right now.” Mahanon searches for his hand in the darkness. Solas lets it find him, and links their hands together. A small comfort. 

“I know.” These moments of peace are so few, growing fewer, and so precious. But reality does not cease because they wish it, and he cannot allow them to continue without knowing-- without contingencies. He starts again. “I know how rare these moments are, and yet I still will break them. I- Mahanon.” He keeps saying his name. Like it holds some kind of protective charm. Like a mantra. “I must be certain. Should something happen to me, what do you plan to do? How will you feed?” 

Mahanon shuts his eyes. The dawn turns him pale, almost wisp-like, paints his eyelids like two great spots of bruise. 

He is so  _ beautiful. _

“Mahanon-”

“Send for my clan, I suppose.” It has always been an option, but never one Mahanon favors. To protect them now means to keep them at a distance.

“And in the meantime? While they travel-- how will you sustain yourself?”

“Solas, what is-”

_ “Please,” _ he squeezes Mahanon’s hand, lets that gesture speak where he lacks the words, “Answer. It will put me at ease.”

A sigh. “Rams, as before. That would hold me, long enough for one of my clan to arrive.” 

_ Mahanon bent on himself in the cabin. Laughter cracks him like a chisel. A headsman's axe. Hysterical. Two steps from madness--  _

_ Mahanon, begging, ma halani, ma halani-  _

Hunting rams merely bought him time. That’s no solution. He scowls.

“Now say you required healing. Red Templars strike us both down. Who heals you? No circle mage knows what a vampire is. They could not heal you.” 

“What are you  _ getting _ at?”

But he knows. As he knew before, when Solas first offered his blood. Mahanon simply wishes to make him say it.

Childish. 

“I am saying your position is precarious. At best. I am saying it would be--  _ wise.  _ If I was not the only one aware of your condition.”

“No.” 

_ “Inquisitor-” _

“Oh, I’m Inquisitor now?” He drops Solas’ hand in an angry gesture. 

“When I am trying to persuade you to do your duty, yes!”

“Duty!” 

Their shouting hits the morning stillness like hammers against glass. Solas seldom wakes this early, and there is something sacrilegious in how they break the morning peace.

“I am  _ aware _ of my duty, Solas. I have a duty to my clan. To the Dalish. The  _ People. Elvhenan-” _

And what happened to _ these are my people now, the Inquisition.  _

“I did not say tell anyone who crosses your path-- You do not need to preach the value of secrecy to  _ me.  _ But perhaps I must teach you the value of  _ pragmatism--” _

“Some things are more important than--”

_ “I know,” _ he drops his voice low, tired of shouting. The morning is young. He only wished-- he wants certainty that Mahanon-- he sighs. “But you are a leader. You head an organization that stretches beyond yourself. You must consider-- every possibility. There is a future, however rare, in which I am not with the Inquisition any longer. Surely you understand what a risk you take, trusting I will always be here? I--” 

_ have a duty. _ It could take him away from here. From Mahanon. 

He has a duty. Had. Has. He was so _certain--_

“For a time, I was not even certain I would return. Losing Wisdom…”

and now so  _ unsure--  _

“Solas…”

He raises a hand to quiet Mahanon’s sympathy. This conversation is not about him. Cannot be.

“Surely you wondered what might happen, if I did not return?”

“Suledin.” His answer is immediate.

“I’m sorry?”

“Endure. I knew you would come back. You might not admit it, but you are  _ incredibly _ stubborn.” 

“I’m well aware.” Solas laughs. It shakes the air awake, coaxes warmth from beyond the mountain. Blue dawn begins its leisurely rise to yellow morning. The adolescent daylight bathes them in an unearthly purple, so that the room seems apart from everything, liminal and unreal. It takes his breath away. 

Mahanon clears his throat. “I will consider.” 

Solas finds his hand again. 

“You’ve given me good counsel in the past. Your points are--” Mahanon strokes a thumb over Solas’ hand. His skin is cooler than it was the night before, but some warmth yet lingers. “You give voice to fears I would rather ignore. But I have to-- my people are always in my mind. Even my position as Inquisitor endangers us. You, too. The Chantry won’t discriminate between the Dalish and the City. We’re all knife-ears to them. I’m a knife-ear who can fight back. That would  _ terrify-- _ ” He sighs, and the breath brings weight. His shoulders tighten, so that his perfect posture comes not quite as naturally as it had moments before. 

Leader, protector, and in many ways-- alone. A heavy burden Solas cannot share, can only understand, from a distance. 

“I wish my Keeper was here.” 

“More counsel?” 

Mahanon attempts a smile. “What you ask deserves more than one voice.” 

_ It is not I who asks, _ he wants to say.  _ The Inquisition asks. Thedas asks. _ But Solas’ worry did not start so selflessly, so he says nothing. 

“Maybe, when we are in the Dirth, I can speak with Hawen…” he trails off. 

He clears his throat. Puts a close to the conversation, for now. “Speaking of my Keeper-- last night…”

He brushes Mahanon’s shoulder, and gooseflesh pimples his skin. 

“I think I dreamed.” 

So caught in the texture of Mahanon’s skin, it takes a moment for Solas to grasp why this is anything worth note. A dream. 

Vampires do not dream. 

“Perhaps the mark?” Mahanon looks down at his hand. The mark lays dormant here, where the Veil holds strongest. “What did you dream?” 

“I flew through a city in the woods. I was hunting?” 

“You find comfort in your time as a hunter,” he offers, even as a sickness wraps tight around his throat. 

Mahanon smiles. “I do. But this was- not that. I was following a hare. But I knew…” he looks through the window, at the rising sun, walking the path back to his far-away dream, the path Solas paved. “Somehow I knew it wasn’t really a hare. A woman.” 

_ An owl, a hare.  _

He takes Mahanon’s hand and traces the fine veins beneath his skin. A line where the anchor would be. 

_ A hunter, the sacrifice.  _

“But there was more to this dream.” He knows there was more to this dream. He knows. 

“Before I reached the hare, a wolf cut me down.” Solas swallows and Mahaon looks at him, holds his gaze. “I let him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a ride! Thank you all so much for reading!! There are some things I might have done differently in the original one-shot, had I known what this AU woild evolve into. but overall I'm incredibly proud of this fic, and I'm so happy to share it with all of you! I never imagined this fic would have an audience beyond my very niche interests 
> 
> If you liked this fic and are interested in seeing more of this story, subscribe to the series. This fic has a lot of "behind-the-scenes" lore developed for this AU, and if there is any interest, I'm considering tidying up my personal lore sheet and posting it as a "Bonus Feature" or something like that. I'm also working on a part 3! I don't know when or if it will be finished, but if you're interested, do subscribe to this series (or to me!) for alerts.
> 
> Thank you again for reading. Dareth shiral!


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